Evening dress
If Chanel was the formidable figure of sportswear, even in the 1920s and 1930s, Patou was sportswear's gentleman, always said to be debonair and a charmer. His dresses exude such a winning confidence and allure: an evening dress, for example, has the simple silhouette of a tennis dress, but it also has the kaleidoscopic beadwork that is all but Fabergé in fantasy and also extravagant in imagination. The armature of the dress is as simple and as flat as possible. As he had brought American models to Paris to show his clothing, Patou was indebted to the guileless all-American girl as modern symbol, a quality correlative to the artless modernism of his apparel.
Artwork Details
- Title: Evening dress
- Design House: House of Patou (French, founded 1914)
- Designer: Jean Patou (French, 1880–1936)
- Date: ca. 1927
- Culture: French
- Medium: silk, glass, metallic thread, plastic
- Credit Line: Gift of Mrs. John A. van Beuren and Mrs. Samuel M. V. Hamilton, 1977
- Object Number: 1977.210.16
- Curatorial Department: The Costume Institute
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