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Classicism in Modern Dress
Torso of draped, flying Nike [Greek] Grave stele of a little girl [Greek] Attributed to the Phiale Painter: Lekythos depicting Poseidon pursuing Amymone Attributed to the Persephone Painter: Bell krater depicting the return of Persephone Themis (goddess of custom and law) Statue of a young woman and a girl from a grave monument [Greek, Attic] Statuette of a veiled and masked dancer [Greek, Hellenistic] Relief of a dancing maenad [Roman copy of a Greek relief attributed to Kallimachos] Fragment from the Eleusinian Relief [Fragments of a Roman copy set in a plaster cast of the original Greek marble relief]
Statue of Eirene (personification of peace) [Roman copy of a Greek bronze statue by Kephisodotos] Statue of a wounded Amazon [Roman copy of a Greek bronze statue] Baron François-Pascal-Simon Gérard: Madame Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, Princess de Bénévent (née Catherine Noele Worlée, later Madame George Francis Grand, 1762–1835) Two dresses [French] Mariano Fortuny: Evening gown Paul Poiret: Dinner dress Mariano Fortuny: Evening ensemble Christian Dior: 'Venus' dress Madame Grès: Evening gown
Halston (Roy Halston Frowick): Evening gown with wrap


The Charioteer of Polyzalos

Archaeological Museum, Delphi
Charioteer of Delphi, 478 or 474 B.C.
Greek
Bronze
Enlarge for more detail



 History, whether manifested as embracing revival or smug repudiation, is especially evident in fashion. Although components of Hellenic attire have appeared throughout Western fashion’s 600-year history, it is only from the 1790s to the 1810s that classicized forms are embraced as the prevailing mode. For most of the period that followed, classical motifs and allusions were essentially superficial. Not until the first decade of the twentieth century, with the movement to an uncorseted body, did a classical sensibility return to fashion with any pronounced significance.

Hellenic dress, with its diversity of draped effects based on reductive, orthogonal components, established an apt paradigm for designers. While the modernists gravitated toward the elegant economy of the construction of dress provided by antique models, postmodernists preferred to cite classical iconography more explicitly. That such contradictory movements incorporated the concepts and imagery of classical dress suggests the protean nature of the style.

In the face of the fashion system’s cycle of novelty and obsolescence, the classical mode, with its evocation of an enduring and immutable ideal, is somewhat of a paradox. Ancient Hellenic attire continues to inspire designers two-and-a-half millennia later, testimony to the universal aspiration to transform woman into goddess through dress.


Clothing, Women's, Fortuny, Mariano (Italian, born Spain, 1871-1949), Poiret, Paul (French 1880-1944), Halston (Ray Halston Frowick) (American, 1932-1990), Madame Grès (French, 1903-1993), Dior, Christian (French, 1905-1957), Women Artists, Europe

The Costume Institute

Ancient Greek Dress, Greek Gods and Religious Practices, Contemporary Deconstructions of Classical Dress, The Greek Key and Divine Attributes in Modern Dress, The Chiton, Peplos, and Himation in Modern Dress, Classical Art and Modern Dress, Contemporary Deconstructions of Classical Dress, Empire Style, 1800-1815, Eighteenth-Century Silhouette and Support, Nineteenth-Century Silhouette and Support, Twentieth-Century Silhouette and Support, Costume in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Women in Classical Greece, Abridged List of Rulers: Europe, Abridged List of Rulers: The Ancient Greek World,

Ancient Greece, 1000 B.C.-1 A.D., Italian Peninsula, 1000 B.C.-1 A.D. , Italian Peninsula, 1900 A.D.-present, France, 1900 A.D.-present,

Europe, 1000 B.C.-1 A.D., Europe, 1900-2000 A.D.