Category: 1890-1899
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Inès Gâches-Sarraute and the Straight-Front Corset
Often anachronistically called the ‘S-bend,’ the dramatic straight-front corset of the early 1900s was invented by a doctor for health purposes and quickly swept up into the tides of fashion.
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1893-94 – Mary Cassatt, The Boating Party
Mary Cassatt’s Boating Party shows important changes in art and culture near the end of the 19th century. The Boating Party depicts evolving cultural norms around women and sport, and the rise of womenswear separates. Through Cassatt’s strong graphic shapes, we can see how Impressionist painting evolved to become more experimental and geometric in the 1890s.
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1892 – William Merritt Chase, Portrait of Lydia Field Emmet
Emulating the work of Old Masters, William Merritt Chase paints Lydia Field Emmet wearing black as a fashionable color and immediately catches the viewer’s attention with the shocking vertical contrast of a pink ribbon.
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1891-1893 – Emile Pingat, Black Day Dress
This day dress by Emile Pingat combines the revival of an 1830s sleeve silhouette with the exquisite couture beading of a Parisian couturier. This amalgamation of historical reference, classic black, a touch of menswear, and savoir-faire showcases luxury and peak style for the consumers that could afford it.
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1898-1901 – Green silk embroidered tea gown
This late 19th-century embroidered tea gown combines design features of several artistic movements of the time, including historicism, Japonisme, and Art Nouveau.
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1897 – John Singer Sargent, Mr. and Mrs. I. N. Phelps Stokes (Mr. I. N. Phelps Stokes)
Though he stands in the shadows, Mr. I. N. Phelps Stokes’ suit sheds light on significant developments occurring in menswear at the end of the nineteenth century.
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gigot sleeve
A sleeve that was full at the shoulder and became tightly fitted to the wrist. Also called leg-of-mutton sleeve.
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1890 – William Merritt Chase, Carmencita
In this lively portrait of Carmencita, William Merritt Chase suggests the audience’s enthusiasm for her dancing by including a gold bracelet and flowers tossed at her feet. The celebrated dancer was painted by many other artists—usually wearing an extravagant dance costume—but none captured her exuberance quite like Chase did in this portrait.
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1899 – Manuel Domínguez Sánchez, Faustina Peñalver y Fauste, marquesa de Amboage
Faustina appears to be the ideal woman of 1899 as her dress includes all of the most fashionable evening wear details, like short puffed sleeves, lace details, and a curvaceous silhouette. She embodies beauty and grace as the artist captures her during a private moment of reflection in her extravagant home.
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1890 – John Singer Sargent, Miss Elsie Palmer
John Singer Sargent’s Miss Elsie Palmer is an intriguing portrait of a young upper class girl who finds herself in a dichotomy of childhood and womanhood as well as mainstream fashionably and dress reform. Her dress rejects most common conventions of fashion in the late 1880s and early 1890s that brings to light a style that is unique and quite her own.
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1820-1901 – Emile Pingat
A master dressmaker and designer, Emile Pingat (c. 1820-1901) was among the elite Paris couturiers of his age, who dressed the wealthiest and most sophisticated of clients in the fashion capital of the world.
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