Kiraz's filles about town at the Musee Carnavalet
For almost 60 years, illustrator Edmond Kiraz's "Parisiennes"--the title of his first-ever retrospective, which opens today at Paris' Musée Carnavalet—have been the embodiment of the stylish fille. His iconic women, with their wide-set eyes, button mouths, and serpentine figures, have appeared in international publications and ad campaigns (Perrier, Nivea) and were for three decades a regular feature of the now-defunct weekly Jours de France. Whether pouting alone in her boudoir or striding down the sidewalk with an armful of shopping bags, the Kiraz girl is incontrovertibly chic: arch, swishy, frivolous to the core. Her appeal is heightened by Kiraz's droll and affectionate brand of satire, which is teased out in captions that fall somewhere between the bubbleheaded and the brilliant ("Nymphet to her date: 'There are many different women in me. How can you expect me to be happy with one man?' "). The show, which runs through October 26, features some 230 watercolors, gouaches, illustrations, and related archives and documents, as well as a separate room for the racier renderings Kiraz has been doing for Playboy since 1970.
—Darrell Hartman
