According to a song popular during World War l, every cloud has a silver lining. In the case of that exercise in mechanized butchery, the silver lining may have been the improvement in women's social position. With so many men going off to fight and die in the trenches, women played a key role by replacing them in a range of vital industries, making it difficult to deny them the vote when peace returned.
These twin trends of mechanization and female suffrage were also important in Art Deco, the dominant design movement of the postwar period, whose sleek, modern style cast its spell over the plastic arts from architecture and furniture to jewelry and accessories.
Some beautiful examples of Art Deco items can be seen in the vases, furniture and knickknacks of the Sonnabend Collection on show at the Isetan Gallery in Shinjuku.