Evening dress

Claire McCardell|Townley Frocks

1946 · silk · Costume Institute

McCardell prized the Empire silhouette, especially for evening. After all, she was preeminently a designer of daywear. As independent as McCardell was, she knew well the European tradition in fashion and admired the soft silhouettes of the early 1800s and the 1920s. For evening, the Empire silhouette represented a grace that was once achieved only in couture softness, but for which McCardell had found the ready-to-wear counterpart at no compromise to elegance.

Artist

Claire McCardell|Townley Frocks

Date

1946

Medium

silk

Culture

American

Department

Costume Institute

Credit line

Gift of Irving Drought Harris, in memory of Claire McCardell Harris, 1958