Dress

Designer Gilbert Adrian American
 Textile designed by Salvador Dalí Spanish
 Textile manufactured by Wesley Simpson, Inc. American

Not on view

As a costume designer for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Gilbert Adrian created striking garments for a fashion-show sequence in the film The Women (1939) that echo Elsa Schiaparelli’s Surrealist designs. Adrian’s work for his own fashion house, founded in 1942, would continue to reference modern art. This trim evening dress, created from a textile designed by the artist Salvador Dalí for the firm Wesley Simpson, brings to mind Schiaparelli’s collaborations with the same artist a decade earlier. Playing with the effect of the print, Adrian introduced an area of black fabric at the left shoulder shaped like a face in profile, onto which he appliquéd sections of Dalí’s motif of fractured, anthropomorphized rocks.

Dress, Gilbert Adrian (American, Naugatuck, Connecticut 1903–1959 Hollywood, California), (a–c) rayon, American

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Dress, Gilbert Adrian (American, Naugatuck, Connecticut 1903–1959 Hollywood, California), (a–c) rayon, American
Dress, Gilbert Adrian (American, Naugatuck, Connecticut 1903–1959 Hollywood, California), (a–c) rayon, American
Dress, Gilbert Adrian (American, Naugatuck, Connecticut 1903–1959 Hollywood, California), (a–c) rayon, American
Dress, Gilbert Adrian (American, Naugatuck, Connecticut 1903–1959 Hollywood, California), (a–c) rayon, American
Dress, Gilbert Adrian (American, Naugatuck, Connecticut 1903–1959 Hollywood, California), (a–c) rayon, American
Dress, Gilbert Adrian (American, Naugatuck, Connecticut 1903–1959 Hollywood, California), (a–c) rayon, American
Dress, Gilbert Adrian (American, Naugatuck, Connecticut 1903–1959 Hollywood, California), (a–c) rayon, American
Dress, Gilbert Adrian (American, Naugatuck, Connecticut 1903–1959 Hollywood, California), (a–c) rayon, American
Dress, Gilbert Adrian (American, Naugatuck, Connecticut 1903–1959 Hollywood, California), (a–c) rayon, American

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