Afternoon dress

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

A trompe l'oeil bolero jacket cropped and defined the bust, while the waist rose into the ribcage, genuinely above the zone of the waist. The devices of bolero and apron differentiated sectors within the dress and emphasized the high placement of the waist, while the crinoline hoop shifted to the back to make the great shape of the skirt mountainously prominent. Such monumental dress captured what French poet Charles Baudelaire called the "pomp and circumstance" of modern urban life.

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