Dress
John Galliano's conflations of diverse cultures and historic periods are the most fevered and unexpected of any contemporary designer. In this garment, from his ready-to-wear collection at Christian Dior, Galliano appears to cite the late 1920s, when the knee-baring chemise was transitioning into the bias cut languor of the 1930s. In addition, he seems to have reprised the panniered, or side-hooped, shapes of the period's robes de style and the handkerchief hems favored for evening dresses of the time. In his use of silk tulle, a weightless textile of great elasticity, Galliano suggests the phenomenon of the planarity of the 1920s silhouette beginning to give way to more body-cleaving styles. The designer draped the cloth with the angled seaming characteristic of bias cuts and then applied shaped platelets of leather in a crocodile-like pattern to convey the impression of reptilian skins cobbled together. In its Amazonian exoticism and Jazz Age glamour, the dress might have costumed Josephine Baker.
Artwork Details
- Title: Dress
- Design House: House of Dior (French, founded 1946)
- Designer: John Galliano (British, born Gibraltar, 1960)
- Date: spring/summer 2003
- Culture: French
- Medium: silk, leather
- Credit Line: Gift of Christian Dior Couture, 2003
- Object Number: 2003.438
- Curatorial Department: The Costume Institute
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Multiple artists/makers
fall/winter 1961–62
House of Dior
Marc Bohan
1980s
House of Dior
Christian Dior
spring/summer 1955
House of Dior
Gianfranco Ferré
spring/summer 1993
House of Dior
Gianfranco Ferré
1990–97
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