Evening ensemble

Design House House of Chanel French
Designer Gabrielle Chanel French

Not on view

From the late teens, Chanel created glamorous evening clothes entirely embellished with paillettes. While the paillettes were seemingly inconsistent with her anti-decorative aesthetic, she asserted the modernity of her designs by applying them in a uniform field, which enhanced a garment's monochromatic starkness as well as its straight, usually tubular, silhouette. Some of her all-over paillette evening clothes revealed sportswear influences. Several were based on separates dressing, such as tops, skirts, and scarves, with some bodices revealing straps based on swimwear. Most famously, Chanel created a luxe version of her beach pajamas for the fashion arbiter Diana Vreeland.

Evening ensemble, House of Chanel (French, founded 1910), silk, rayon, plastic, French

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.