"Emperial Crown" (jacket); "Tonight or Never" (dress)

Elizabeth Hawes

spring/summer 1934 · silk · Costume Institute

This dress exhibits many of Hawes' design qualities, including her use of self fabric to create subtle and interesting details. The jacket worn over this dress has a cape-like construction with extended panels that wrap around the waist and hips, creating a wrapped-up effect. In the back, the jacket is gathered in the center creating a bow shape, and falling in an elegant drape. The selvedges are left showing around the neck, which adds textural interest without having to add fussy embellishments - a characteristic often used by Hawes. The dress appears as a simple sheath, yet the peach satin adds to its three dimensionality by emanating from the shoulder at the front, looping over the belt and then extending to the hem, and turned back. The treatment of the peach satin at the back is in the style of menswear jacket lapels.

Artist

Elizabeth Hawes

Date

spring/summer 1934

Medium

silk

Culture

American

Department

Costume Institute

Credit line

Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of the Brooklyn Museum, 2009; Gift of Mrs. Hollis K. Thayer, 1957