Ball gown

Cristobal Balenciaga|House of Balenciaga

spring/summer 1948 · silk, steel · Costume Institute

Keenly historicist, Balenciaga invented a fantasy of eighteenth-century court dress, knowing that Marie-Antoinette favored overdresses with swags anchored by roses. Sustained by wide panniers also appropriated from eighteenth-century fashion, Balenciaga renewed the Rococo rose for the 1940s and 1950s.

Artist

Cristobal Balenciaga|House of Balenciaga

Date

spring/summer 1948

Medium

silk, steel

Culture

French

Department

Costume Institute

Credit line

Gift of Lisa and Jody Greene, in memory of their loving mother, Mrs. Ethel S. Greene, 1958