Dress

Examples of double girdling of the chiton, with a visible overgirdle placed high and a lower undergirdle with full kolpos, appear in ancient Hellenic dress. This contemporary reprise of the style by Stéphane Rolland, designer for the House of Jean-Louis Scherrer, is modified to expose more of the wearer’s body. Unlike a true chiton, the gown is constructed of three, rather than two panels of fabric. Two short lengths of crepe form a halter front that extends into a deep-plunging décolletage. A seam from the center waist forms the mini-length front. One longer panel attached from the waist at either sideseam extends into a long train. While some of the fabric has been cut away to create the arc of the skirt’s hem, the Rolland design, like its classical predecessor, is developed primarily through the draping and seaming together of fabric rather than the shaping of pattern pieces.