Vintage Poster Archives
Mauzan Persil 1935 | Art Deco Advertising Poster
Mauzan Persil 1935 | Art Deco Advertising Poster
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Five women in vivid printed and spotted 1930s dresses emerge from cascading diagonal bands of white laundry sheets, each arm raised to hold aloft a box of Persil. The sheets recede at a steep perspectival angle across a dark ground, their bold shadow lines giving the composition its geometric backbone. At the base, the large black serif 'Persil' logotype anchors the design, with the red tagline 'Lave Tout, Tout Seul' (Washes Everything, All By Itself) set below in condensed block capitals.
Designed by Achille Lucien Mauzan (1883-1952) and printed by Affiches Mauzan at 4, rue de la Rochefoucauld, Paris, the poster dates to around 1935. Mauzan had returned to Paris from Buenos Aires two years earlier and was working under contract with Societe Generale Publicite. The composition reflects his interwar phase: the diagonal sheet geometry owes something to Cubist spatial play, while the expressive figures and flat decorative colour remain squarely within Art Deco commercial illustration. Over a career spanning France, Italy, and Argentina, Mauzan produced more than 2,000 poster designs; this Persil commission sits among the most spatially inventive of his Paris period.
The poster illustrates a shift in French consumer advertising of the mid-1930s: the product is no longer placed on a shelf or table, it is held, celebrated, made central to the action. Each woman's raised arm transforms the Persil box into a kind of trophy, the household task reframed as effortless. 'Lave Tout, Tout Seul' is the promise: the product does the work.
Reproduced from archival sources as a vintage advertising poster print on 200gsm Enhanced Matte Fine Art Paper, using pigment-based inks for long-term colour stability.
