Court presentation ensemble

Boué Soeurs

1928 · (a, c, d) silk, metallic threads; (b) silk; (e) feathers, plastic (cellulose nitrate) · Costume Institute

The robe de style silhouette, with its structural panniers augmenting the sides, is rendered by the Boué Soeurs as a light, flickering system of sheer, partially see-through layers rather than the hard carapace of eighteenth-century dresses. Whereas petticoats and inner structures of eighteenth-century clothing were solid and more or less rigid, the Boué Soeurs dress, despite the resemblance in silhouette, reveals its twentieth-century disposition in its lingerie-like revealing lightness, like the merest trellis for an arbor of silk flowers. A penchant for sweet, three-dimensional buds is, of course, shared by the rococo and the Boué Soeurs

Artist

Boué Soeurs

Date

1928

Medium

(a, c, d) silk, metallic threads; (b) silk; (e) feathers, plastic (cellulose nitrate)

Culture

French

Department

Costume Institute

Credit line

Gift of Mrs. George Henry O'Neil, 1968