"Sorrente" Dance Gown

This dress of delicate silk voile has a low neckline and arm openings with narrow shoulder straps. Below the neckline it is covered with loosely fluttering, pointed oval leaves that progress in size and eventually form the scalloped dress hem. Each successively sized leaf is an embroidered fan-shaped with bright blue sequins. The technology of the overlay stitches emphasizes their visual impact. A strong blue with a light mauve tint was among the favourite colours of Jeanne Lanvin. She had discovered the colour in the work of early Renaissance painter Fra Angelico and thereafter used it again and again in different nuances and colour combinations. Here it receives special radiance as a result of the lustre of the sequins. Jeanne Lanvin had worked as a milliner since 1890 and founded her couture house in 1910. She created ingeniously designed dresses with virtuoso technology. Lanvin became particularly famous for rich, encrusted embroidery and for her Stilkleid (“style dress”), which appeared again and again in modified form.