Dress

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Indian and Turkish cottons and silks entered Europe in quantity in the First Empire. Empire gowns of newly chaste silhouette often employed circumspect floral motifs. In this instance, stylized exotic flowers are merged with scallop shells in a sign of aesthetic synthesis between the East and classicism.

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