Designed by Jacques Fath / Evening Gown / spring/summer 1947

This image is one of over 108,000 from the AMICA Library (formerly The Art Museum Image Consortium Library- The AMICO Library™), a growing online collection of high-quality, digital art images from over 20 museums around the world. www.davidrumsey.com/amica offers subscriptions to this collection, the finest art image database available on the internet. EVERY image has full curatorial text and can be studied in depth by zooming into the smallest details from within the Image Workspace.

Preview the AMICA Library™ Public Collection in Luna Browser Now

Cultures and time periods represented range from contemporary art, to ancient Greek, Roman, and Egyptian works.
Types of works include paintings, drawings, watercolors, sculptures, costumes, jewelry, furniture, prints, photographs, textiles, decorative art, books and manuscripts.

Gain access to this incredible resource through either a monthly or a yearly subscription and search the entire collection from your desktop, compare multiple images side by side and zoom into the minute details of the images. Visit www.davidrumsey.com/amica for more information on the collection, click on the link below the revolving thumbnail to the right, or email us at amica@luna-img.com .

Creator Name: Fath, Jacques
Creator Nationality: European; French
Creator Role: Designer
Creator Dates/Places: French, 1912 - 1954
Creator Name-CRT: Designed by Jacques Fath
Title: Evening Gown
Title Type: Object name
View: Full View
Creation Start Date: 1947
Creation End Date: 1947
Creation Date: spring/summer 1947
Object Type: Costume and Jewelry
Classification Term: Main dress-Womenswear
Materials and Techniques: silk, steel boning
Dimensions: L. at center back 52 in. (132 cm)
AMICA Contributor: The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Owner Location: New York, New York, USA
ID Number: 1993.55
Credit Line: Gift of Richard Martin, 1993
Rights: http://www.metmuseum.org/
Context:

The corset is a fashion convention to define the waist and project the bosom. Challenged by nature, reason, and gender rights, the corsetted silhouette remained a persistent aesthetic ideal of the twentieth century. During the 1940s and 1950s, in particular, ideas of femininity were expressed fashion-wise in a cinched waist akin to the corsetted construction of the past, as in this evening gown by Jacques Fath. Despite the anachronistic lacing, this dress reveals its structure like a modernist building. Pink, a color of twentieth-century lingerie, is combined with a traditional lacing in an evening silhouette of the postwar years, here given deeper historical resonance. In 1954, just before his death, Fath returned to the representation of the corset as a means of reationalizing the wasp waist he preferred.

AMICA ID: MMA_.1993.55
AMICA Library Year: 2000
Media Metadata Rights: Copyright The Metropolitan Museum of Art

AMICA PUBLIC RIGHTS: a) Access to the materials is granted for personal and non-commercial use. b) A full educational license for non-commercial use is available from Cartography Associates at www.davidrumsey.com/amica/institution_subscribe.html c) Licensed users may continue their examination of additional materials provided by Cartography Associates, and d) commercial rights are available from the rights holder.