Robe Volante

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This robe volante is an exceedingly rare example of a well-documented form of dress that marked the transition from the mantua of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries to the robe à la française, the dress style that became ubiquitous in the eighteenth century. The unstructured silhouette of the robe volante, with its unbroken expanses of cloth, made it particularly appropriate for the display of large-scale patterning.

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