Evening bonnet

Caroline Reboux|Caroline Reboux

ca. 1888 · silk, rhinestones · Costume Institute

Caroline Reboux is one of the most renowned millinery designers in the history of fashion. While she is best remembered for popularizing the cloche in the1920s, Reboux enjoyed a long and successful career following her 'discovery' by Princess Metternich in the 1860s, and her business continued to command a high level of prestige for three decades after the designer's death in 1927. The museum is fortunate to have this beautifully thought out and hand crafted bonnet as an early representation of her work, which was characterized by structured simplicity and restraint in decoration and ornamentation. While the small bonnet form was the dominant style of the time, the interesting ruffle edge along the brim and visor-like rim at the front of the puffed crown are particularly creative and atypical.

Artist

Caroline Reboux|Caroline Reboux

Date

ca. 1888

Medium

silk, rhinestones

Culture

French

Department

Costume Institute

Credit line

Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of the Brooklyn Museum, 2009; Gift of Emily T. Clay and Ellen Thomas, 1961