1950's hourglass chic feted at Paris fashion museum

Fashion in France, 1947-1957) at the Palais Galliera fashion museum in Paris, July 10, 2014.

Reams of fabric and expert structure are visible in Dior's white and black day suit that opens theshow, in which interior boning and padding create the corseted and shapely silhouette.

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Saillard said he hopes young creators will see the show and take inspiration from the 1950s, asdesigners like Jean Paul Gaultier and Dior's former creative director John Galliano did after the erawas all but forgotten in the '60s and '70.

"You usually need 20 years to appreciate an earlier era," Saillard said. Along with them are lessfamiliar though no less important names like Jacques Fath and Jacques Heim.

PARIS (Reuters) - When Christian Dior introduced his debut haute couture collection in February1947, the meters of fabric spilling over the models' hips in swirls of fine wool, silk and tulle werenothing short of a fashion revolution.

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PARIS Fri Jul 11, 2014 4:41pm BST

By Alexandria Sage

Dresses for cocktail hours, balls, lazy summer afternoons - even gloves, hats, brassieres andswimsuits - all make an elegant appearance under the ornate ceiling of the Palais Galliera, a 19thcentury mansion originally built to house the art collection of a duchess but which since 1977 hasbeen the city's fashion museum.

cocktail dresses sammydress

One of the most breath-taking looks is by a designer more renowned for her elegant draping designsin the 1930s and '40s.

Credit: Reuters/Benoit Tessier

One of those is a Pierre Balmain stunner worthy of the most sumptuous of balls, its bustier and fullskirt embroidered with gold metal thread and red silk roses in an ultra-feminine nod to the 18thcentury.

The Palais Galliera has also liberated from its closet one of its most precious items - a 1952 silkgown worn and donated by Wallis Simpson, the Duchess of Windsor.

The pale blue grey silk of the "Palmyre" cocktail dress is decorated with sequins, crystals andembroidered with twisting vines and flowers.

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"This was haute couture's golden age, when Paris regained its title of world fashion capital," saidSaillard, who on Wednesday night - during haute couture fashion week in Paris - gathered thecouturiers of today for a gala dinner and advance peek at the show.

Delightful are the full embroidered wool felt skirts in electric fuchsia, blue and purple by theBoutique of Jeanne Lanvin-Castillo - a chic precursor to the poodle skirt of 1950s Americana.

1 of 6. "It's never the women who wore '50s fashion who wants to wear it again - it's their grand-daughters."

His emblematic creations ushered in "the most luxurious and radiant" decade in women's fashion,according to Olivier Saillard, director of the Palais Galliera fashion museum, which presents "The50s - Fashion in France, 1947-1957" beginning on Saturday in Paris.

. A visitor looks at vintage dresses by designers Christian Dior, Jacques Heim and Givenchypresented in the exhibition 'Les Annees 50, La mode en France' (The 50s. 2.

Drawing on the museum's extensive archive of garments and accessories, the exposition stars notonly Dior but also such greats as Balenciaga, Pierre Balmain and Hubert de Givenchy.

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The enigmatic Spanish designer Cristobal Balenciaga, who set up shop in Paris in 1937, featuresprominently, his sober designs from the early part of the decade morphing into a fuchsia taffeta"Baby Doll" dress from 1958, a radical look that foreshadows the simpler looks of the following tenyears.

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Madame Gres found herself overshadowed in the era of Dior's "New Look" with its focus on volume,but a silk velvet evening gown in hues of beige and wild rose draping down the hip through a seriesof delicate pleats is equal to any of its fuller-skirted rivals.

(Editing by Larry King)

An exquisite Carven day suit in beige woolfeatures a bodice of horsehair braiding thatemphasizes the cinched look.

The exhibit runs through Nov