A new show in Saint Louis promises a rare combination of art, cars and elegant fashion

A new exhibition at the Saint Louis Art Museum celebrates the intersection between Gallic art, fashion, culture and the automobile in the inter-war years. ‘Roaring: Art, Fashion, and the Automobile in France, 1918-1939’ melds key pieces of fashion with contemporary modern art and, most importantly of all, cars that represented the pinnacle of automotive craft.

Manufacturers like Delahaye, Bugatti, Talbot and Hispano-Suiza were the haute couturiers of the motor industry, creating bespoke cars for a select few, catering to special commissions and elaborate customisations.

These automotive monuments to a gilded age are celebrated in ‘Roaring’, with no fewer than ten cars from the era featured alongside examples of art, fashion and design from the period in question. As the exhibition would have it, the relationships between these creative and economic spheres went both ways, with the avant-garde impacting on car design and fashion, with forms and styles that cascaded down to the mass market. The focus here is firmly on luxury, however.

Curated by Genevieve Cortinovis, ‘Roaring’ positions its collection of ten star cars as both subjects and objects. Set alongside artworks like Fernand Léger’s 1919 Disque dans la rue and Jean Arps’ sculpture Shell Crystal (1938), you’ll find everything from imagery of Josephine Baker to deco and modernist decorative objects, including the iconic bent wood Thonet armchair and fashion by Lanvin, Chanel, House of Worth and more.

The cars are a staggering assemblage in and of themselves, and include a trio of Bugattis, along with an Alfa Romeo, Talbot-Lago and Delahaye, the last a unique 1937 Type 135MS Special Roadster featuring a leather interior by Hermès. Other rarely seen models include the mighty Bugatti Type 41 Royale, just six of which survive (of seven manufactured), and the 1938 Talbot-Lago T150C-SS Teardrop Coupe – 17 were built, all different in some way.

The exhibition tracks numerous creative lives from these fertile times, including but not limited to Josephine Baker and the Delaunays, but also photographers Germaine Krull, Jacques-Henri Lartigue and Henri Cartier-Bresson, couturier Jeanne Lanvin, Matisse, Man Ray, Charlotte Perriand and the car-obsessed Le Corbusier.

The clothes on display focus on the gradual simplification of women’s fashion during the period, charting the shift from the fussy Edwardian attire of the early motorists to pared back, almost unisex clothes, from beach pyjamas to austerely beautiful jackets and evening dresses.

One of the images on display sums up the cross-pollination of the era. Taken to illustrate coats designed by Sonia Delaunay and Jacques Heim, it features two models standing alongside a specially painted Aries Torpedo (also by Delaunay). The setting is the Pavillon des Renseignements et du Tourisme in Paris, designed by Robert Mallet-Stevens.

The car, the clothes, and the architecture were all part of the 1925 International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts, known as the cradle of the art deco movement. ‘Roaring’ brings this brief but richly stylish era back to life.

‘Roaring: Art, Fashion, and the Automobile in France, 1918-1939’, Saint Louis Art Museum, April 12 - July 27, 2025, Slam.org