Promenade dress

Mme. Blanchard

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Like the late-eighteenth-century promenade dresses à la polonaise, which hovered at the ankle and ballooned at sides and back, the style of the 1880s was to create volumes of form around the body while freeing the ankle and foot. The 1880s style was influenced by the new sports clothing of the time, especially walking and croquet dresses.

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