Spencer

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The sheer, lax form of Empire dress provided little visual or climate safety for the body. Almost immediately with the adoption of the new sheer styles, a Darwinian reaction occurred in the presence of spencers, adapted from menswear especially military attire, and shawls, taken first from the textiles of the East. These extras, even if provisional, shrouded the see-through and waft-through gauziness of Empire 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