Art Deco, short for the French Arts décoratifs (lit. 'Decorative Arts'), is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design that first appeared in Paris in the 1910s just before World War I and flourished internationally during the 1920s to early 1930s, through styling and design of the exterior and interior of anything from large structures to small objects, including clothing, fashion, and jewelry. Art Deco has influenced buildings from skyscrapers to cinemas, bridges, ocean liners, trains, cars, trucks, buses, furniture, and everyday objects, including radios and vacuum cleaners.
The name Art Deco came into use after the 1925 Exposition internationale des arts décoratifs et industriels modernes (International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts) held in Paris. It has its origin in the bold geometric forms of the Vienna Secession and Cubism. From the outset, Art Deco was influenced by the bright colors of Fauvism and the Ballets Russes, and the exoticized styles of art from China, Japan, India, Persia, ancient Egypt, and the Maya. In its time, Art Deco was tagged with other names such as style moderne, Moderne, modernistic, or style contemporain, and it was not recognized as a distinct and homogeneous style.
