Evening jacket

Since Mrs. Kempner often treated the components of couture designs as separate elements to be recomposed to her liking, she generally purchased ensembles with all their constituent parts. Designs with jackets or coats held a particular attraction for her and are well represented in her collections for day and for evening. Her selection of jackets suggests an alternate strategy as well as her interest in the utility of a beautiful element that could be paired with long and short skirts or pants. For example, in selecting a glittering lamé jacket of "nouvelle society" exuberance from Saint Laurent's "Brocade Collection," Mrs. Kempner reprised a style of her youth, when Christian Dior astonished his clients each season with a newly evolved silhouette. Saint Laurent, who began his career at Dior, pays homage to his mentor in the "New Look" shape of the wire-framed jacket. Its asymmetrical collar alludes to Dior's own torqued versions in taffeta and satin from the late 1940s to the early 1950s.