Evening dress

Geoffrey Beene

1991 · silk, metal · Costume Institute

More than any other designer other than Vionnet, Beene designs in the round. He swirls and spirals shape three-dimensionally, most especially the potentially disruptive aperture of lace. The lace's stretch is part of Beene's dynamic and gyrating course in the dress, vesting it with pirouetting, dancing energy. As Bill Cunningham has said, "Beene's work is the last link on an unbroken chain of great dressmakers stretching back to the Golden Age of the 1920s and 1930s."

Artist

Geoffrey Beene

Date

1991

Medium

silk, metal

Culture

American

Department

Costume Institute

Credit line

Gift of Anne H. Bass, 1993