Evening cape

Designer Charles James American

Not on view

Charles James began his design career in the 1930s, and between the late 1940s and mid-1950s his scarce and highly original couture gowns were sought after by society’s most prominent women. James manipulated fabrics into dramatic, elegant shapes using complex seaming and sometimes complicated understructures. An innovator of form, color, and texture, James engineered this wrapped evening cape with kimonolike sleeves as a form-fitting yet fluid silhouette imbued with vitality and movement.

On view from October 22, 2022–February 20, 2023

Evening cape, Charles James (American, born Great Britain, 1906–1978), silk, American

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