Art Déco broke away from the work of the Art Nouveau epoch. Plants were replaced by geometric motifs, serpentine forms by rational forms, curves by straight lines, and mass production by high-end production. The various sources of inspiration of cubism, Fauvism, and Greek, Mayan, and Egyptian art brought entirely fresh approaches to all the arts of the era: fashion, design, architecture, painting, posters, goldsmithing, and glassmaking.
The forms were simplified and stripped of decorative elements to highlight the purity of the materials. Art Déco introduced innovations and depended only on the excellence of the materials: wrought iron, leather, glass, exotic wood, ceramics, and gilding. This avant-garde association of noble materials was exclusively aimed at a prestigious clientele, in quest of modernity, comfort, and refinement.
