P93.15.2

Images (5)

Designing Women_16 Left to Right: Attributed to Lucile, Two Peignoir and Slip ensembles, Possibly New York, circa 1918 (90.180.11, 90.180.9); Image of the Rose Room at the couture house of Lucile, New York, circa 1915; Attributed to Lucile, Tea Gown and Slip, Possibly New York, circa 1918 (90.180.4); Lucile, Lady Duff Gordon, Evening Dress, London, circa 1912 (81.131.12); Afternoon suit, New York, circa 1913 (P93.15.2); Madame Percy, Afternoon dress, London, circa 1910 (P83.20.3)

Designing Women_17 Lucile, Lady Duff Gordon, Evening Dress, London, circa 1912 (81.131.12); Afternoon suit, New York, circa 1913 (P93.15.2); Madame Percy, Afternoon dress, London, circa 1910 (P83.20.3)

Exhibitionism_1 Left to right P93.15.1 (dress), P93.15.2 (ensemble)

Object: Afternoon suit

Designer: Lucile (1863 - 1935)

Date: c. 1913

Medium: Velvet and lace

Country: USA

Credit Line: Museum purchase

Object number: P93.15.2

Descriptionformal afternoon suit with ecru lace blouse, ecru velvet cutaway jacket and long draped skirt

Label Text:The dancer Irene Castle, whom Lucile declared “the first of the moderns,” wore a version of this suit. Lucile fused masculine and feminine elements into a youthfully elegant style with a cutaway jacket inspired by nineteenth-century menswear and draped skirt panels that reveal a lace underlayer. The narrow skirt has a back slit and full-skirted petticoat that would have accommodated a dancer’s footwork. Castle was dressed by Lucile onstage and off; she proclaimed the designer “one of the most remarkable dress artists I had ever known.”

Exhibitions:

Arbiters of Style
Exhibitionism: 50 Years of the Museum at FIT
Designing the It Girl: Lucile and Her Style
Designing Women: Fashion Creators and Their Interiors