1968
RUDI GERNREICH
Dress
Autumn/winter 1968–69
Rudi Gernreich, American,
born Austria, 1922–1985
Black wool jersey with silver zipper
Purchase, Funds from various donors, Isabel Shults Fund, and Millia Davenport and Zipporah Fleisher Fund, 2005 (2005.261)
2003
AZZEDINE ALAÏA
Dress
Spring/summer 2003 haute couture
Azzedine Alaïa, French,
born Tunisia, 1935–2017
Black wool jersey
with silver zipper
Courtesy Alaïa
Zipper closures were introduced into fashionable clothing in the early 1930s; they were sewn discreetly into a garment’s side or back, replacing hooks and eyes. Elsa Schiaparelli preempted the zipper’s functionality by deploying oversize colorful versions as decorative devices, while Charles James embraced its practicality, spiraling it around the body to facilitate undress. In Rudi Gernreich’s playful minidress, a silver zipper with a conspicuous ring pull originates at the center-back neckline, wraps around the body, and finishes at the hem. The zipper not only serves as a modernist ornament but also draws attention to the potential for speedily removing the garment.
In this floor-length jersey dress by Azzedine Alaïa, the spiraling zipper becomes a similarly suggestive feature, alluding to its ability both to hold the dress together and take it apart. Alaïa’s designs highlighted the beauty of the female form, favoring minimal adornments that enhanced the figure and merged with the garment’s structure. The designer first explored the spiraling zipper in the 1980s, and retained it as a device to trace the body’s contours and become an integral core “seam,” joining the dress’s component parts.
In this floor-length jersey dress by Azzedine Alaïa, the spiraling zipper becomes a similarly suggestive feature, alluding to its ability both to hold the dress together and take it apart. Alaïa’s designs highlighted the beauty of the female form, favoring minimal adornments that enhanced the figure and merged with the garment’s structure. The designer first explored the spiraling zipper in the 1980s, and retained it as a device to trace the body’s contours and become an integral core “seam,” joining the dress’s component parts.