Object: Evening dress
Designer:
Charles James
(1906 - 1978)
Date: 1940
Medium: Red silk crepe
Country: USA
Credit Line: Gift of Doris Duke
Object number: 71.265.13
DescriptionLa Sirene evening dress in red silk crepe; floor length sheath with long sleeves, shaped and fitted with multiple horizontal released pleats at CF, gathered CB seam and fishtail hem
Label Text:Charles James designed several versions of this dress style, popularly referred to as his “Lobster dress.” The tucks on this example radiate outward from a central, spine-like form, suggesting the overlapping plates of the crustacean’s exoskeleton.
In Collection(s)
Exhibitions:
- A Queer History of Fashion: From the Closet to the Catwalk
- Elegance in an Age of Crisis: Fashions from the 1930s
- RED
- Force of Nature
- Exhibitionism: 50 Years of the Museum at FIT