17 Facts About Paul Iribe

Paul Iribe was a French illustrator and designer in the decorative arts.

Paul Iribe worked in Hollywood during the 1920s and was Coco Chanel's lover from 1931 to his death.

Joseph Paul Iribe was born in Angouleme, France in 1883, of a father born in Pau, Jules Jean Iribe.

At age seventeen Iribe provided illustrations for the popular L'Assiette au Beurre and contributed drawings and caricatures for French satirical papers such as Le Rire, Le Sourire, and La Baionnette.

Paul Iribe's design career was a prolific one, contributing text and visuals to Vogue magazine, designing fabrics, furniture, rugs and doing interior design work for wealthy clients.

In 1933, Paul Iribe collaborated with Coco Chanel in the design of extravagant jewelry pieces commissioned by the International Guild of Diamond Merchants.

The couturier Paul Poiret recognized Iribe's talent and brought him in to create drawings, which would compellingly represent the new models in his collection.

In 1919 Iribe was in Hollywood recruited for design work by film director Cecil B DeMille.

In Hollywood, Paul Iribe practiced the same design sensibilities for which he was renowned in Paris.

In 1924 Paul Iribe was given free rein in a film project for which he was director, set designer and costumer, Changing Husbands starring Leatrice Joy.

Paul Iribe was a man prone to anger, shouting matches, and fist fights when contradicted and did not endear himself to colleagues.

Paul Iribe engaged in a sustained feud with DeMille's key costume designer, Mitchell Leisen, which resulted in Leisen being fired by DeMille in 1923.

Now working with Leisen, Paul Iribe made a serious design error for one of the sets and DeMille let him go.

Paul Iribe's illustrations were prolific, rendered in dark monotones of black and white punctuated by vivid red.

Paul Iribe was part of a Parisian, bohemian clique, a cosmopolitan mix of personalities from the world of the arts and elite society.

In 1911, Paul Iribe married actress and variety entertainer Jeanne Dirys.

Paul Iribe was with Coco Chanel, at her villa, La Pausa, on the French Riviera, on September 21,1935, when he suddenly collapsed and died while playing tennis.