Jacket

A separate category of opulent evening jackets, never purchased as part of a full ensemble, is expressive of Mrs. Kempner's more baroque sensibilities. Since the early twentieth century and the emergence of Café Society, designers focused their most interesting details on the elements that were visible when their clients were seated at a box in the theater or at a table in a restaurant. For the most part, Mrs. Kempner appears to have favored a splashy effect at the top and a simple line at the bottom. While it is not an especially unusual strategy for dressing, her selections are often of a graphic boldness that reflected her own vivacious extroversion.

Mrs. Kempner's jackets, coats, and ensembles from Christian Lacroix are in the designer's signature style. Lacroix, famed as a master collagist of materials, employs the entire spectrum of the artisanal tradesmen, les petites mains, who are responsible for the embroidery, trimming, and other handwork of haute-couture embellishment. Lacroix's fascination with nineteenth-century dress styles still persistent in traditional regional costume emerges in both the silhouettes of his garments and their applied patterning.