In an inspired take on France’s most scandalous century the Metropolitan Museum of Art transformed the famous Wrightsman Galleries into a series of vignettes celebrating the looks and lifestyle that led to revolution. This was the museum show that rollicked the fashion and design industry in New York last spring.

Intrigued by “French Twists” a feature article in Vogue May 2004 about the museum show, the photo layout was a spectacular confluence of fashion, interior design, and interior architecture. The Vogue article led to a reading of Jean-Francois de Bastide’s The Little House, written in 1786. Harold Koda, curator of The Met described The Little House as “a libertine little novella that is really an architectural tour of a petite maison, one of the small villas built on the outskirts of Paris in that century that afforded a certain level of anonymity and were often the sites of romantic intrigue.” Sandra Ence Paul of the Fashion Institute at Salt Lake Community College experienced the “Dangerous Liaisons” museum show with the student designers enrolled in the fashion program.

“This little book, with its luscious descriptions of forecourts and seductions, is the neatest intersection of architecture and romance since Dominique Francon fell—like a ton of bricks, so to speak—for Howard Roark in The Fountainhead.” House & Garden

Sketches created by Lynn Brannelly-Newman, 2004 recipient of the Bert Vieta Vision Award