1927
JEANNE
LANVIN
“Koh.I.Noor” Evening Dress
Spring/summer 1927
Jeanne Lanvin, French, 1867–1946
Black silk taffeta embroidered with
silver metal thread and paillettes
Gift of Mme. Yves Lanvin, 1960 (C.I.60.19a)
2020
JONATHAN ANDERSON
for LOEWE
Dress
Spring/summer 2020
Loewe, Spanish, founded 1846
Jonathan Anderson, British, born 1984
Dress of black synthetic lace and white cotton
binding; skirt of white synthetic plain weave
Courtesy Loewe
Not all women were comfortable wearing the slim, tubular styles promoted during the 1920s. An alternate silhouette was the robe de style, based on the wide-hipped, pannier-supported robe à la française of the eighteenth century. The style became synonymous with Jeanne Lanvin; a hallmark of her aesthetic sensibility was the restrained use and judicious location of decorative embellishment, which was designed to harmonize with the garment’s overall silhouette. Here, a stylized chinoiserie motif is worked in silver thread and paillettes along the top edge of the skirt, accentuating the extension of the panniers.
Jonathan Anderson’s modern-day robe de style made of black lace edged with white cotton binding comes from his spring/summer 2020 collection. Instead of referencing the eighteenth-century pannier of the French robe à la française, however, Anderson drew from Loewe’s Spanish heritage to find inspiration in the guardainfante worn beneath Spanish court gowns in the seventeenth century. In contrast to the delicate transparency of the lace, the white binding outlines the shape of the underpinning and emphasizes the shelflike extension at the hip.
Jonathan Anderson’s modern-day robe de style made of black lace edged with white cotton binding comes from his spring/summer 2020 collection. Instead of referencing the eighteenth-century pannier of the French robe à la française, however, Anderson drew from Loewe’s Spanish heritage to find inspiration in the guardainfante worn beneath Spanish court gowns in the seventeenth century. In contrast to the delicate transparency of the lace, the white binding outlines the shape of the underpinning and emphasizes the shelflike extension at the hip.