What followed, the footloose and free-spirited 1920s, was best exemplified in the short, loose-waisted flapper dress. Nowhere is the freedom and vibrance of the decade better captured than in period graphic art -- particularly in fashion illustrations created by a technique known as pochoir.

The process, which involves applying brilliant color to prints by hand using cutout stencils, dates back to the 15th century, when artists used stencils as a less expensive way to reproduce woodcut prints. Pochoir didn't become popular or collectible until the '20s, when it was used commercially in Paris to create prints for fashion patterns or architectural designs. The technique also influenced artists such as Matisse and Picasso. The famous Matisse "Jazz" folio was developed from cutout techniques not unlike pochoir.

At the height of the '20s, Paris was a melting pot of artistic activity. From Harlem came the influence of jazz and Josephine Baker performing La Revue Nègre. From Russia, the costume and set designer Léon Bakst brought the rich, ethnic dress of the Ballets Russes, introducing the French bourgeoisie to new color combinations such as turquoise and fuchsia and Far East details such as feathers and turbans. Pochoir prints captured the juxtaposition of intense colors, the geometric compositions reminiscent of Art Deco, and Asian-inspired accents. It was that pizzazz that made them instantly collectible.

Today they are sought for many of the same reasons. "What makes pochoir prints so desirable is that they represent the best in the changing thinking of that time," says Leila Lyons, owner of Lyons Limited Antique Prints in Palo Alto, California. "Nineteenth-century prints were structured, rigid, and conventional, whereas pochoir prints have a real sense of rebellion that was part of the early 20th century. It was a time of freedom and discovery, a time of gaiety and charm and whimsy, and the pochoir process captured this with freedom of color and form."