Dress

Jean Patou, one of the leading couturiers of the 1920s, advanced an aesthetic based on simple lines and refined ornamentation. His designs display a harmony between cut and surface embellishment, with an emphasis on fine materials and a sophisticated execution. In this evening dress, the garment’s simple cut provides an uninterrupted canvas for a delicately embroidered chinoiserie scene—a landscape of pagodas and dense foliage populated with figures holding parasols and idly swinging—that recalls in its motifs and graceful lines the chinoiserie designs of Jean Pillement (French, 1728–1808). Chinoiserie themes were widely interpreted in the haute couture during the 1920s, and this dress is a particularly elegant example—the embroidery design is finely drawn, and the selection of beads chosen to illustrate the scene creates subtle effects of depth and shading through varying degrees of transparency.