A thoroughly French affair, the 1925 Paris Exposition Internationale Des Arts Decoratifs et Industrials Moderne was dominated by the foremost designers Rene Lalique for glass, Edgar Brandt for metalwork, Emile-Jacques Ruhlmann for furniture and Jean Dunand for lacquer work. With no expense spared, luxurious bespoke ensembles were created perhaps the most notable being the fabulous Ocean liners.

Conversely, the architect Le Corbusier unveiled his Pavilion Esprit Nouveau which promoted functional modernist ideals, shaped by the ethos of Dutch De Stijl and the German Bauhaus. Robert Mallet-Stevens’s Paris houses (1927–29) illustrate the new aesthetic as does the Villa Roche (1923-25), now the Fondation Le Corbusier. However, what really sounded the dead knell for luxurious Art Deco was the global economic depression that followed the Wall Street Crash in 1929.