La Parisienne. 9 heures…

Original artwork depicting a woman stepping out of her car, parked near a Parisian street lamp. A resolutely modern illustration!

The lingerie brand Scandale was founded in Paris in 1932 by Robert Perrier. A great connoisseur of rare fabrics, as well as a songwriter and art collector, Perrier supplied high-quality silks to Coco Chanel during the 1920s, an activity he continued for more than thirty years — until 1967 — providing some of the most sought-after luxury fabrics to the houses of Dior, Yves Saint Laurent, Balenciaga, Jean Patou and Givenchy. Several of his silks are today held in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Musée de la Mode et du Textile in Lyon and the Victoria and Albert Museum.

He also introduced synthetic fabrics into French haute couture, a major novelty at the time, which he developed particularly for women’s lingerie. This was the birth of Scandale: before the advent of Lycra after the war, Robert Perrier pioneered the transformation of liquid latex into fiber, giving rise to the first elastic girdle and helping free women from the constraints previously imposed by corsetry. Bold, sensual and colorful, “le rouge scandale” had a considerable impact on the fashion industry and on the way women wore underwear.

The brand was also the first to use illustration in advertising, entrusting poster artist René Gruau with the design of its iconic logo, then Pierre Couronne, Diaz and Jean Jacquelin (between 1950 and 1960) with the direction of several advertising campaigns in France and the United States. Scandale was relaunched recently, in 2021.

A very fine version colored in gouache.