Dress

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

As the nineteenth century progressed, the waistline slowly began to drop from immediately under the bust towards the natural waist. Although this gown reflects the reigning essentially columnular silhouette of the Empire, it retains vestiges of pre-revolutionary styles in its applied ornament that suggests the decorated stomacher and overskirt of the open robe of the ancien regime.

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