Evening dress

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Cotton emerged as a fashionable fabric in the 1780s with the chemise à la reine, the cotton shift favored as dress by Marie Antoinette beginning in this turbulent decade. As always, clothing had political and international implications. One of the chief reasons the Lyons silk manufacturers railed against the reductive, modern attire is that their luxurious silks were being abandoned in favor of imported cottons from India. The textile of the robe à l'Anglaise demonstrates its origin in a metallic gold selvage with red weaver's mark.

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