Dress

Art Historical Context

This elegant cotton dress, crafted in between 1826 and 1829, offers a window into the transitional fashions of the late Regency era. During this period, women's silhouettes began shifting from the high-waisted Empire styles of the early 1800s toward the more fitted bodices and fuller skirts that heralded the Victorian age. Cotton, a lightweight and breathable fabric revolutionized by Britain's Industrial Revolution, became a staple for daytime and summer attire, symbolizing both practicality and the era's growing textile innovations. Housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume, this ga...