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House of Chanel, design house

Ensemble, 1956

Description

Maker

  • Coco Chanel, 1883-1971, French, designer
  • House of Chanel, French, design house

Title

Ensemble

Year

1956

Medium

Silk rib weave (bengaline) with filled (trapunto) quilting and silk-satin belt
satin belt

Type

  • Fashion,
  • Costume

Credit

Gift of Mrs. Georges Seligmann

Object Number

60.111.2

About

This black couture cocktail ensemble is made is made from a serviceable textile known as bengaline. Since the 1800s, bengaline had been utilized for mourning clothing, as its pronounced rib weave added visual appeal to strictly regulated and mostly black widows’ attire. Here Chanel transforms the textile further with the laborious stitching technique trapunto, creating a serpentine effect. The raised texture of trapunto is made by pricking the fabric with a needle and stuffing minuscule amounts of batting between the backing fabric and the face textile.

The pink satin belt with boning and diminutive bow complete the ensemble, adding just the right amount of softness to an otherwise very robust textile.

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Related

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House of Chanel

Skirt, 1956

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Bodice, 1956

House of Chanel

Belt, 1956

More objects +

Use

The images on this website can enable discovery and collaboration and support new scholarship, and we encourage their use. This object is in Copyright. This object is Ensemble with the accession number of 60.111.2. To request high-resolution files or new photography, please send an email to imagerequest@risd.edu and include your name and the object's accession number.

Feedback

We view our online collection as a living documents, and our records are frequently revised and enhanced. If you have additional information or have spotted an error, please send feedback to curatorial@risd.edu.

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