Evening ensemble

Emanuel Ungaro

1990–92 · silk · Costume Institute

Current notions of classical dress are surprising in the breadth of their parameters. They are based in part on the original variations and manipulations of the antique models, the attributes accrued to it over time by artistic convention, and the twentieth-century adaptation of ancient methods to modern forms. That the dress of people two-and-a-half millennia in the past can imbue a design of today with the aura of myth and timeless beauty suggests that the classical mode, like Penelope's weaving, is continuous and without end.

Artist

Emanuel Ungaro

Date

1990–92

Medium

silk

Culture

French

Department

Costume Institute

Credit line

Gift of Anne H. Bass, 1993