Medium: Black matte silk jersey

Date: 1938

Country: France

Credit: Gift of Mr. Rodman A. Heeren

This short-sleeved evening dress with a sharply cut, V-neckline is another of Madame Grès's variations on the Grecian gown. It not only displays the range of her early "Grecian" experiments, it also presages a design element that the couturier would refine and continue to use well into the 1950s: horizontally ruched fabric that lay between the bust and the waist. Collectively, the silhouette and lack of understructure accentuate the garment's modernity, so that it looks fresh and contemporary even though it is nearly seventy years old.

Object Number: 70.57.66