Dress

Lainey Keogh

fall/winter 1998–99 · a,c,d) synthetic fiber, Lurex; b) aluminum, metal, jade, wood · Costume Institute

Irish designer Lainey Keogh names her gown after Venus, the Roman Aphrodite. Like a chiton, it is girdled, but here, rather than to adjust the garment's fullness, the cinching lines actually anchor the loose fall of monofilaments into place. In the absence of the stitched bands, an inadvertent exposure of the body would be impossible to control. As in the case of designers Thierry Mugler and John Galliano, Keogh combines disparate references. Her one-shouldered gown suggests Sandro Botticelli's use of hair as a device of modesty in his painting The Birth of Venus, but the long golden tresses covering the nude body also conjure up images of Lady Godiva on her mythic ride through the streets of medieval Coventry.

Artist

Lainey Keogh

Date

fall/winter 1998–99

Medium

a,c,d) synthetic fiber, Lurex; b) aluminum, metal, jade, wood

Culture

Irish

Department

Costume Institute

Credit line

Gift of Lainey Keogh, 2003