House of Dior | Eugéne | c. 1949
Arnold Scaasi | c. 1961
Not usually a fan of polka dots, but the spacing and size of these is so organic when paired with the skirt.
Arnold Scaasi | Ensemble | c. 1958
The simplicity of the cut makes me swoon.
And when did we stop wearing coats with our gowns? I would die to see an opera coat on a red carpet today.
Arnold Scaasi | c. 1966
I could see Megan Draper fluttering about in this baby doll.
“1762 Doll” by Edward Molyneux, 1949
From the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Molyneux’s contribution features janseniste panniers, and was inspired by a portrait of Madame de Pompadour by de la Tour. Janseniste panniers were shorter and lighter-weight, stiffened with horsehair or boning and popular in the second half of the 18th-century. They were similar to English pocket panniers and allowed the wearer to access pockets in undergarments. Maurice Quentin de La Tour (1704-1788) was the French portrait artist to King Louis XV of France from 1750 to 1773. During his tenure, one of his many subjects was that of Madame de Pompadour (1721-1764), the famous courtesan and official mistress of Louis XV. “Madame Pompadour” (1755) depicts her in her home surrounded by books and works of art, alluding to her desire to enlighten the French court with the intellectual developments of Parisian culture at the time.
