Art-in-Industry Movement

A key trend in retailing during the 1920s was the "art-in-industry movement" and the emphasis on frequent changes in style and color to spur consumerism. High-style rooms of contemporary design at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art and other museums, based on trends imported from Europe, principally France, influenced the "look" of products manufactured for consumers. Museum personnel even consulted with department store personnel on the design of "exhibition" sales rooms. The August 1929 issue of Forum carried the punningly titled "Mad Houses" by Thomas Craven, a biting critique of the "art-in-industry movement," demonstrating that huge exhibition sales rooms of art-inspired furniture at Macy's and other department stores did not please all consumers.

The Bernays Typescript on Art in the Fashion Industry, 1923-1927: "Cheney Brothers", from the Edward L. Bernays Papers, illustrates some of these developments in the world of fashion. At the same time as the artful, streamlined, "modern" look was being incorporated into the production, advertising and sale of household gadgets and furniture, Bernays advised his clients, the Cheney Brothers, to incorporate motifs and colors from the new art of Georgia O'Keefe and Marc Chagall in the design of luxurious silks manufactured for the fashion industry. The strategy of playing the "art card" brought the Cheneys profitable publicity. (DIRECTORY NOTE Edward L. Bernays)

Macy's joined the debate on the importance of color, style, and art in the merchandising to consumers of clothing, furnishings and even automobiles in How the Retailer Merchandises Present Day Fashion, Style and Art (1929), by Irwin D. Wolf of the Kaufmann Department Stores, Inc. and Austin Purves, Head, Design Atelier, R.H. Macy and Company, Inc. Purves discusses "Modernism," the importance of the concept of design, and how the department store fits into these considerations: "I have felt there has been a tremendous gap between the high standard of architecture and the highest standard of purely utilitarian things. You may want to use a good refrigerator or you may want to wear nice-looking clothes. And yet so far as production is concerned in this country, we have not become sufficiently conscious of the inter-relation [sic] of the whole line of creative endeavor from architecture down to purely useful things" (p. 12).

Purves also draws a parallel between fashion trends and General Motors' strategy of adding frequent changes in style and color to jack up the merchandising of automobiles. (INTRO NOTE Automobiles)