Evening dress

Design House Louiseboulanger French
Designer Marie-Louise Boulanger French

Not on view

Feathers of the 1920s swayed with the new music and dance, benefited from Orientalism's panache and bent for the exotic, and allowed clothing to be more fluid and flexible than ever. Here, the feather trim is individual filiments of ostrich plume knotted together to form longer strands. Each segment is dyed a different tone for the effect of an ombré cascade. The feather in nature is a beautiful form, but Louiseboulanger's feathers are purposely governed and distilled beyond natural beauty to achieve a trim synthetic and sophisticated.

Evening dress, Louiseboulanger (French, 1923–1939), (a) silk, feathers; (b) silk, French

Due to rights restrictions, this image cannot be enlarged, viewed at full screen, or downloaded.

Open Access

As part of the Met's Open Access policy, you can freely copy, modify and distribute this image, even for commercial purposes.

API

Public domain data for this object can also be accessed using the Met's Open Access API.