Dress
1760-1775
Brocaded silk jacquard and white silk
Museum purchase
Object number2017.2.1
A robe à la française is a style of eighteenth-century elite dress with ruffled sleeves, large pleat (or “sack”) at the center back, and paniers (caged undergarments worn on the sides and underneath the skirt to widen the hips). These construction elements highlighted the amount of fabric used to make the garment– expensive fabric that would have instantly signaled the wearer’s wealth and status.
DescriptionRobe a la francaise of brocaded silk with flower sprays and leaves meander pattern on cannele ground, trimmed with self fabric edged with gimp and fly fringe. Scattered flower and leaf sprays in shades of red, peach, pink, blue and green; blue and green floral and foliate trails with leaf subpattern in ivory, on pale blue / green ground. Band of ruched self fabric trim around neck and down CF edges, secondary serpentine ruched band from waist to hem, white silk facing along CF and around hem, double ruffle cuffs lined in white silkCollections
Exhibitions