Wedding dress

Zandra Rhodes

1977 · Nylon, rayon, metal, glass · Costume Institute

A textile designer by training, Rhodes developed an interest in fashion out of a desire to find the right vehicle for her distinctive, whimsical print designs. One of the reference points for her seminal 1977 “Conceptual Chic” collection was Elsa Schiaparelli’s famous “Tears” dress from 1938, an ensemble with a striking “torn” trompe l’oeil textile designed by the artist Salvador Dalí. Rhodes reversed her standard practice, rendering a two-dimensional print in three dimensions by making artfully placed and finished tears in a crystal-studded knit rayon. The collection offered a more refined take on the rips, chains, and safety pins that then adorned the punks of King’s Road in London. Rhodes, who has been credited as the first to integrate punk aesthetics into luxury fashion, admitted that she was responding to the zeitgeist, inspired by the “vibrations” in the air.

Artist

Zandra Rhodes

Date

1977

Medium

Nylon, rayon, metal, glass

Culture

British

Department

Costume Institute

Credit line

Gift of Zandra Rhodes, in honor of Harold Koda, 2016