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Images from the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Designed by Yves Saint Laurent for the House of Dior in 1958. The trapeze silhouette was a precursor to the A-line and the mini of the 1960s.
Brilliantly described by the MMA in their online collection database:
Creating the trapeze silhouette for Dior, Saint Laurent has a rigid understructure veiled under a fly-away cage. A boned corset anchors the dress but allows the delusion of a free swinging cone. Seeking a shape for independence, though still tethered, the "Eléphant Blanc" dress also employs a shimmering embroidery on net that requires a finishing flourish to the thread work on a transparent surface. Thus, in both surface decoration and in structure, Saint Laurent gained the effect of ethereal, bouyant freedom while retaining the structure of the couture. From the earliest works at the house of Dior through the designer's accomplishments in his own house, Saint Laurent has practiced and perfected this modernist wielding of couture construction and proficiency to seem wholly unfettered.
Currently on view at the Denver Museum of Art exhibition Yves Saint Laurent: The Retrospective, through July 8th.
