The 1925 Exposition internationale des arts décoratifs et industriels
modernes in Paris marked the foundation of what would later
be termed Art Déco. Rather than a concluded episode, it inaugurated
an aesthetic code that traversed the twentieth century and
still resonates in the present. Art Déco is here understood not as
a crystallized style, but, as a taste: a versatile and adaptive language
that has continuously nourished design, architecture,
fashion, cinema, and collecting. The centenary celebrations in
Italy, France, Belgium, Britain, and the United States highlight
its plural identity, capable of adapting to heterogeneous contexts
while preserving a recognizable vocabulary. The persistence of
Déco also emerges through museum canonization, the dynamics
of the art market, cinematic revivals, and the postmodern revaluation
of ornament, up to recent reinterpretations by contemporary
architects, designers, and fashion houses. Between heritage
and innovation, exclusivity and experimentation, Art Déco appears
as a living paradigm of modernity. Its enduring vitality lies
not in nostalgic reiteration, but in the capacity to transform
memory into a resource for the present, embodying the dialogue
between ornament and function, tradition and avant-garde.
