Close-bodied Gown Information
A close-bodied gown, English nightgown, or robe à l'anglaise was a women's fashion of the 18th century. The bodice of this style of dress was closed in front and fitted to the waist in back. Like the earlier sack-back gown or robe à la française, it featured pleats from the shoulder, but in this style the pleats were stitched down to mould the gown closely to the body until the fullness was released into the skirt.[1][2] The gown was usually worn with a matching or contrasting petticoat and featured elbow-length sleeves, which were finished with separate frills called engageantes.
A similar gown with the skirts looped up was called a robe à la Polonaise.
Gallery
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Robe a l'anglaise (closed gown) with matching petticoat, French, 1784-87, Cotton, metal, and silk. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1991.204a, b
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Side view of the robe a l'anglaise at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
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Robe a laAnglaise, 1785
See also
Notes
References
| Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Robe à l'anglaise |
- Ribeiro, Aileen: The Art of Dress: Fashion in England and France 1750–1820, Yale University Press, 1995, ISBN 0-300-06287-7
- Freshman, Philip, Dorothy J. Schuler, and Barbara Einzig, eds (1983). An Elegant Art: Fashion & Fantasy in the Eighteenth Century, Abrams/Los Angeles County Museum of Art, ISBN 0875871119
- Takeda, Sharon Sadako, and Kaye Durland Spilker (2010). Fashioning Fashion: European Dress in Detail, 1700 - 1915, LACMA/Prestel USA, ISBN 9783791350622
Categories: Gowns | 18th century | History of clothing (Europe) | History of clothing (Western fashion)
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