La Belle Époque, 1983 — Featuring Diana Vreeland and Douglas Fairbanks Jr. | From the Vaults

Next Monday is the first Monday of May—but sadly, there won’t be any crowds at The Met. Travel back in time and revisit The Costume Institute’s 1982 exhibition “La Belle Époque,” organized by the legendary Diana Vreeland. This outrageous and slyly self-aware documentary takes you on a journey from the heights of decadence in fin-de-siècle Paris through the global pandemonium of World War I. A tale of haves and have-nots, of extraordinary opulence and violent class warfare, this film has it all—glamorous decay, gorgeous archival footage, outsize personalities, and compelling stories of the artists and intellectuals who mined their times to create enduring art and fashion. As part of The Met’s 150th anniversary in 2020, each month we will release three to four films from the Museum’s extensive moving-image archive, which comprises over 1,500 films, both made and collected by the Museum, from the 1920s onward. This includes rarely seen artist profiles and documentaries, as well as process fi