« Scandale »

[S.l.n.d., circa 1955].
Gouache and graphite on card (240 x 320 mm), studio stamp on back.

Original model for the famous lingerie brand showing a woman in a girdle with the American flag on her shoulders and captioned ‘Scandal’.

We apologize for the imperfect translation generated by Deepl for the purposes of the show.

The Scandale lingerie brand was created in Paris in 1932. It was founded by Robert Perrier, a great lover of rare fabrics, songwriter and art collector. In the 1920s, he supplied high-quality silks to Coco Chanel, an activity he continued for over 30 years – until 1967 – supplying some of the most coveted luxury fabrics to the houses of Dior, Yves Saint Laurent, Balenciaga, Jean Patou and Givenchy. Many of his silks are now on display at 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 to French haute couture, a major innovation at the time, which he developed particularly for women’s lingerie. This was the birth of Scandale: before the advent of Lycra in the post-war period, Robert Perrier was responsible for transforming liquid latex into a fibre, which gave rise to the first elastic girdle, helping to free women from the shackles of corsetry. Bold and sensual, ‘Scandal Red’ had a huge impact on the fashion industry and the way women wore underwear.

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

This gouache was used for one of the visuals in the campaign launched by the brand in the United States in 1955.