Ball gown, Pingat et Cle, Paris, c1860. Photo: Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute, New York.
On the seventh day of Advent, I have for you this most delightfully frothily beautiful of ball gowns from around 1860. I know that many people find the fashions of this period unwieldy at best and downright ugly and reminiscent of those spooky looking dolls that elderly ladies used to hide loo roll beneath at worst but I actually really love massive bell shaped crinolines like this one – even if I’m not entirely sure that I’d actually want to wear it myself.
Oh, who am I kidding? Bring on the froth! Who in their right minds could resist those floating layers of tulle, the cute fobs that decorate the skirt and those pretty little puff sleeves? With a Parisian provenance one can easily imagine this dress being worn by one of Empress Eugénie’s ladies in waiting – certainly it brings to mind the sumptuous and rather delightful painting by Winterhalter of the Empress surrounded by her ladies where the vast majority of the canvas is taken up by the subjects’ enormous flowing silk and tulle skirts that flutter around them like so a drift of gorgeous flower petals.
Empress Eugènie Surrounded by her Ladies in Waiting, Winterhalter, 1855. Photo: RMNC/Château de Compiègne.
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