Dress 1892 - 1902

This dress was made by the House of Paquin, a leading Paris fashion house. The exact date of its creation is not known, but it exemplifies many early twentieth-century couture trends. The dress’s elegant, elongated lines and floral motifs speak to the period’s broader cultural obsession with naturalism and the feminine form. But beyond its aesthetic appeal, this gown also reveals the complex socio-economic structures underpinning the fashion industry at the time. Garments such as this dress were typically produced through the labor of many skilled seamstresses working under strict hierarchies, reflecting the rigid class divisions of French society. These kinds of dresses also helped to establish Paris as a center of global taste and fashion. Understanding the full story of this dress requires looking beyond its surface beauty, drawing upon archival sources, fashion history, and social studies to better understand the lives and labor of the people who made it.