Dinner dress

House of Worth

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Autumn leaves decorate a silk dress the bronzed color of the season and its leaves. Never melancholy in their majesty, the leaves remind us of Homer's phrase: "like leaves on trees the race of man is found, Now green in youth, now withering on the ground: another race the following spring supplies; they fall successive, and successive rise." The dress is likewise an allegory cognizant of the season and of a cycle of life and death.

The Costume Institute

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Costume Institute's collection of more than thirty-three thousand objects represents seven centuries of fashionable dress and accessories for men, women, and children, from the fifteenth century to the present.

Metropolitan Museum of Art