Costumes Parisiens 2026, now in motion: George Barbier's 1913 fashion plates, dressed and animated for 2026.
In 1913 George Barbier drew the latest Paris fashion for the Journal des Dames et des Modes: flat stencil colour, one elegant figure per plate, and a caption announcing the look, like "Robe d'intérieur" or "Manteau de théâtre". I found his Costumes Parisiens plates at the Rijksmuseum, where they are in the public domain, cropped ten of them down to the bare stencil and built a Recraft V4 Style from them. Costumes Parisiens 2026 keeps his poses and his captions and dresses them for how we actually live now: a silk blouse over pyjama trousers for the video call, a red delivery backpack worn over a fur-trimmed coat, a theatre coat embroidered with 99 unread badges, a necklace of charging cables, earbuds worn as pearl drops, a ring light carried like a parasol. This version brings four plates to life with Recraft's video tools, set to Erik Satie. Same magazine, a hundred and thirteen years later; only the accessories have changed.
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Affiches 2026: Jules Chéret's Belle Époque posters, advertising the things of 2026.
In the 1890s Jules Chéret covered the walls of Paris with colour lithograph posters: a laughing woman in a swirling yellow dress, hand-drawn lettering shouting the product, colour sprayed across the sheet. I took ten of his posters from the Rijksmuseum, where they are in the public domain, and built a Recraft V4 Style from them, lettering and all. Affiches 2026 keeps his dancing girls and his typography and lets them sell what Paris buys today: free wifi, delivery in ten minutes, the electric scooter, the electric car, noise-cancelling headphones, binge-watching, a dating app and coffee to go. Three posters come to life with Recraft's video tools, and every headline is lettered by the style itself. A hundred and thirty years on, the products have changed; the joy of selling them has not.
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Skazki 2026: Ivan Bilibin's Russian fairy tales, retold with the gadgets of 2026.
Between 1899 and 1902 Ivan Bilibin illustrated a series of Russian fairy-tale booklets: flat ink outlines, watercolour fills and an ornamental folk border around every page. I took ten of his plates from Wikimedia Commons, where they are in the public domain, and built a Recraft V4 Style from them, borders and all. Skazki 2026 keeps his heroes and hands them the gadgets that would get them through the same stories today: Baba Yaga rides a robot vacuum instead of a mortar, Vasilisa lights the dark forest with her phone's flashlight instead of a glowing skull, the Firebird turns out to be a delivery drone, the hut on chicken legs has wifi and a doorbell camera, and Emelya's magic stove simply drives itself. Three plates come to life with Recraft's video tools. The tales are older than the gadgets, and they fit them perfectly.
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Encyclopédie 2026: Diderot's plates of the trades, drawn again for the jobs we do now.
Between 1762 and 1772 Diderot and d'Alembert published eleven volumes of engraved plates showing every trade of their day: the workshop scene above, the tools laid out below, each one numbered Fig. 1, Fig. 2. I took eight of those plates from The Met's Open Access collection, where they are in the public domain, cropped them to the bare engraving and built a Recraft V4 Style from them. Encyclopédie 2026 uses the same layout to document the trades we actually do now: the bike courier with his insulated backpack, the phone repairman, the kitchen-table remote worker, the content creator and her ring light, the barista, the data centre technician, the gamer and the e-scooter charger. Three plates come to life with Recraft's video tools, and the frontispiece puts a smartphone where the Enlightenment put the sun. Same encyclopedia, two hundred and sixty years later; the tools changed, the workshop did not.
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Costumes Parisiens 2026: George Barbier's Paris fashion plates of 1913, dressed for the way we live now.
In 1913 George Barbier drew the latest Paris fashion for the Journal des Dames et des Modes: flat stencil colour, one elegant figure per plate, and a caption announcing the look, like "Robe d'intérieur" or "Manteau de théâtre". I found his Costumes Parisiens plates at the Rijksmuseum, where they are in the public domain, cropped ten of them down to the bare stencil and built a Recraft V4 Style from them. Costumes Parisiens 2026 keeps his poses and his captions and dresses them for how we actually live now: a silk blouse over pyjama trousers for the video call, a red delivery backpack worn over a fur-trimmed coat, a theatre coat embroidered with 99 unread badges, a necklace of charging cables, earbuds worn as pearl drops, a ring light carried like a parasol. Same magazine, a hundred and thirteen years later; only the accessories have changed.
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One Hundred Demons · 2026: Kawanabe Kyōsai's night parade of 1890, redrawn for the things we throw away.
In Japanese folklore, an object that survives a hundred years grows a soul, and in 1890 Kawanabe Kyōsai's Pictures of One Hundred Demons showed these spirits as a night parade of lutes, gongs and cooking pots running on clawed feet across empty paper. I found the book in The Met's Open Access collection, cropped eight spreads down to bare ink and pink, mint and ochre wash, and built a Recraft V4 Style from them. Each plate of One Hundred Demons · 2026 keeps the composition of one Kyōsai spread and swaps his haunted kitchenware for the things we now throw away after two years: a smartphone buried under 99+ unread messages, a microwave on a demon's shoulder, a knot of wired earphones, an ox courier with a delivery bag. Our things no longer wait a century to come back, so this is their parade.
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