Court dress
In its most formal configuration, the robe à la française presented a particularly wide and flattened profile accomplished by enlarged panniers. Constructed of supple bent wands of willow or whalebone and covered in linen, panniers took on broader or narrower silhouettes. The most remarkable held out the skirts like sandwich boards, barely wider than the body in side view but as expansive as possible in front or rear view. A woman so garbed had to pass through a door sideways.
Artwork Details
- Title: Court dress
- Date: ca. 1750
- Culture: British
- Medium: silk, metallic thread
- Credit Line: Purchase, Irene Lewisohn Bequest, 1965
- Object Number: C.I.65.13.1a–c
- Curatorial Department: The Costume Institute
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