Dress
Maker
Rudi Gernreich
PeriodCirca 1970 - 1975
Place MadeU.S.A.
MediumPolyester knit
Dimensions80 in. (203.2 cm)
SignedThe dress contains four tags, reading "Sports & Country Clothes / Lord & Taylor / Fifth Avenue," "Dry Clean Only," "100% Polyester," and "Rudi Gernreich Design for Harmon Knitwear [size] 12."
ClassificationsCostume, Women's
Credit LineGift of Mrs. Charles H. Jones, Jr., 1998
Object number1998.9
DescriptionA woman's floor length dress of black knit polyester. The dress is constructed in a body-hugging slender silhouette, with a round neck, long sleeves, slightly flared skirt, and a long back zipper. The black polyester fabric is accentuated by pairs of wide lime green and white horizontal bands at the waist and at the upper portion of the proper left arm. A large four inch diameter circle is appliqued to the center front of the dress.Curatorial RemarksRudi Gernreich was one of the most famous designers of the sixties and early seventies, introducing such fashion shockers as the topless bathing suit (1965). His introduction of the "no bra" bra, with its natural contours and minimal shaping (also 1965) completely revolutionized the fashionable female silhouette. An exhibition in 1998 of his work at the Metropolitan Museum of Art honored the Gernreich as one of the premiere fashion influences of the modern era. Gernreich was born in Vienna in 1922. In 1938, he and his mother (his father had committed suicide in 1930) fled the Nazi occupation and settled in Los Angeles. By 1952, Gernreich was selling simple cotton dresses at the Beverly Hills boutique Jax. After his astonishing rise to fame, Gernreich's career began to decline in the late 1960s, in part because he refused to relinquish control of his ideas to marketers and assistants. Gernreich died of lung cancer in 1985 at the age of 63.
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