Evening jacket

Elsa Schiaparelli

winter 1937–38 · silk, plastic (cellophane, celllulose nitrate), gelatin, leather, oil resin · Costume Institute

In Paris during the mid- to late-1930s, the major sites of fashionability were the theatre, restaurant and nightclub. The dinner suit, usually consisting of a dress or skirt with a jacket, became extremely popular for its non-specificity. Its wearer could go to Fouquet's for cocktails, Maxim's for dinner, and the Ambassadeurs for dancing without the necessity of changing clothes. Elsa Schiaparelli is credited with having invented the dinner suit in the early 1930s. Her original version comprised a simple, floor-length black dress and a white jacket with long sashes that crossed in the back but tied at the front, both in crêpe de Chine. As she comments in her autobiography Shocking Life, "It … created turmoil in the fashion world … [and] proved to be the most successful design of my career."

Artist

Elsa Schiaparelli

Date

winter 1937–38

Medium

silk, plastic (cellophane, celllulose nitrate), gelatin, leather, oil resin

Culture

French

Department

Costume Institute

Credit line

Gift of Enid Rubin, in memory of her mother, Margaret L. Kastor, 1974