Along with Coco Chanel and Elsa Schiaparelli, she towered high for decades as one of the pillars of French fashion. Now iconic designer Jeanne Lanvin, who died in 1946, will be honoured in a new exhibition opening this week at the Paris City Fashion museum at the Palais Galliera. The show will be inaugurated by Paris' Mayor Anne Hidalgo and celebrates Lanvin being the oldest fashion house still operating in France, now under the creative direction of Alber Elbaz. Dresses by Jeanne Lanvin featured in the new exhibition opening this week at the Paris City Fashion museum at the Palais Galliera reveal her love of vibrant colours . Lanvin opened her bridal department in 1909 and her gowns became popular with prestigious customers who favoured her designs, pictured, using ivory silk chiffon embroidered with pearls and gold metallic threads . Lanvin, pictured in Paris in 1938, used travel diaries, swatches of ethnic fabrics and a vast library of art books to feed her curiosity and inspire her to create different patterns and designs . It's a rich legacy has spanned the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries and the new exhibition charts the rise of the company founded by Lanvin after she opened her first store in 1889. The designer was born in Paris in 1867 and after training to be a dressmaker, she then became a milliner with dreams of opening her own fashion house. After she made her dream a reality, she was a pioneering working mother as she established her business whilst caring for daughter, Marguerite. The displays in the new exhibition, which will run till 23 August, reveal her love of colour and the Asian influences seen in her embroidery and decorative work. 'My Fair Lady' from 1939 features a large bias-cut ribbon that stands out against the white fabric of the dress . An absinthe green silk satin dress from the twenties, embroidered with glass beads and Swarovski crystals . There are more than one hundred pieces in the exhibition that reveals how Lanvin's rich legacy has spanned the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries . It will feature more than a hundred exhibits from the collections of the Palais Galliera and the Lanvin Heritage, revealing how Lanvin could lend her creative talent to children's clothes, bridal wear and accessories. In 1927, she celebrated her daughter Marguerite's thirtieth birthday with the creation of the legendary perfume Arpège. The famous logo designed by Paul Iribe, depicting the couturière with Marguerite, is displayed on the round bottle created by Armand Rateau. The same logo is still featured on Lanvin creations to this day. Lanvin used travel diaries, swatches of ethnic fabrics and a vast library of art books to feed her curiosity and inspire her to create fabrics, patterns and exclusive colours - with her favourite shade a blue that become known as Lanvin blue. A attendee admires the My Fair Lady gown that was inspired by French 18th century-style dresses . By the thirties, Lanvin was championing high waisted dresses with belts like this one for a smart, tailored but still feminine look . Her styles helped set the trends across the decades from ample skirts in the early 20th century to Art Deco designs in the twenties. Nadja Swarovski, member of the Swarovski executive board who are supporting the exhibition, said: 'We are honoured to partner with the Palais Galliera in supporting the first retrospective dedicated to Jeanne Lanvin, one of the greatest figures of Parisian haute couture. 'Swarovski was founded in 1895, just six years after Mme Lanvin established her house, and she used crystals to adorn the luxuriously embellished evening gowns which became her trademark. 'This inspiring exhibition pays tribute to the skill, inventiveness and creativity of a great artist who captured and expressed the spirit of her time, and celebrates over 125 years of extraordinary fashion heritage which continues to thrive under Alber Elbaz.' Lanvin had a taste for black and white designs with geometrical effects  - a trend which dominated the thirties . The exhibition will be open until 23 August and Lanvin's current creative director Alber Elbaz hopes people will come away saying "I love Jeanne Lanvin" Elbaz himself commented: 'For this exhibition, we began to look at the clothes, the dresses, the inside of the dresses, and the feelings that we picked up from them. The whole question was to work out how to display them. 'For many years I've worked on the windows of our boutiques, and I love doing it. But doing an exhibition in a museum is a different kind of undertaking, because it involves a different vocabulary. 'Never having done an exhibition, I wanted to learn all I could from Olivier Saillard and his team. We had two options: either to be historical and do a very academic retrospective with a succession of dates; or to follow our feelings, to love and admire the clothes, touch the visitors’ heart through the sheer beauty of these garments, and finish the exhibition kind of up on a cloud. 'I think we have managed to create an exhibition around the dream of fashion. What I am hoping for is to hear the visitors say "I love Jeanne Lanvin".'
Jeanne Lanvin, who died in 1946, will be honoured in a new exhibition . Opens this week at the Paris City Fashion museum at the Palais Galliera . Shows how fashion house has spanned three centuries .