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Cocktail Dress
Silk
American, circa 1960
Woven label: "Pauline Trigère"
Gift of Ann Jones, 99.4.3

"The utter femininity of Pauline Trigère's graceful any time of day length dress suggests the Vionnet of old." New Yorker, Sept 22, 1951

Pauline Trigère, like Norman Norell, Claire Mc Cardell and Calvin Klein, is a designer of "classic" American fashion. The characterization of her as an American Vionnet is particularly apt with this cocktail dress where a bias cut and draped bodice becomes its own back straps and hanging scarves.

The cocktail dress, like cocktails themselves, rose to fame in the 1950s. Trigère favored the sheath silhouette throughout the decade; a cooly sophisticated look contrasted with that of teen fashions during the same years.