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Opera coat

Design House House of Paquin French
Designer Jeanne Paquin French
1912
Not on view
As the first couturière to advertise her fashion house by taking a tableau of models to operas and races uniformed in her concoctions, Madame Jeanne Paquin nodded incessantly to the showman's dramatic line and the aristocracy's love of luxurious tactile material. This opera coat, perhaps extensively modeled after the columnar shapes and mythical planar designs of the Orientalist sensibility, echoes the ouevre of créateur Paul Poiret and the theatricality of the Leon Bakst's costumes for Les Ballets Russes. The rose-colored tassles that hang at the sides of the coat draw the distant eye to this miraculous creation, allowing one to linger long enough to notice the fashionably demure hobble shape inasmuch as the intricacies of Paquin's eccentric embroidery and beadwork.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Opera coat
  • Design House: House of Paquin (French, 1891–1956)
  • Designer: Jeanne Paquin (French, 1869–1936)
  • Date: 1912
  • Culture: French
  • Medium: silk
  • Credit Line: Gift of Mrs. Edwin Stewart Wheeler, 1956
  • Object Number: C.I.X.56.2.1
  • Curatorial Department: The Costume Institute

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Photograph, Irving Penn American, paper, American
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House of Paquin
ca. 1974
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Photograph, Irving Penn American, paper, American
Photograph
Irving Penn
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Photograph, Irving Penn American, paper, American
Photograph
Irving Penn
Jeanne Paquin
ca. 1974
Photograph, Irving Penn American, paper, American
Photograph
Irving Penn
Jeanne Paquin
ca. 1974

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