NEW YORK CITY — The Metropolitan Museum of Art presents the exhibition “Poiret: King of Fashion,” on view through August 5.

In the annals of fashion history, Paul Poiret (1879­–1944), who called himself the “King of Fashion,”is best remembered for freeing women from corsets and further liberating them through pantaloons. However, it was Poiret’s innovations in the cut and construction of clothing — made all the more remarkable by the fact that he could not sew — that secured his legacy.

Working the fabric directly onto the body, Poiret helped to pioneer a radical approach to dressmaking that relied more on the skills of drapery than on those of tailoring.

Focusing on his technical ingenuity and originality, the exhibition explores Poiret’s modernity in relation to and as an expression of the dominant discourses of the early Twentieth Century, including Cubism, Classicism, Orientalism, Symbolism and Primitivism.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is at 1000 Fifth Avenue. For information, 212-535-7710 or www.metmuseum.org.