Artwork Details
A) dress: length 47-1/2 in. B) slip:
Mark DescriptionZandra Rhodes / Hand Made in England
Accession NumberGift of Mrs. G.K. (Kitty) Tavel
CopyrightMrs. G.K. (Kitty) Tavel; given to the Indianapolis Museum of Art in 1989.
Zandra Rhodes’s ready-to-wear handmade dresses have the quality of couture. For Rhodes, designing a dress is part of a whole creative process that encompasses pattern design for her own fabrics, printing and hand-screening them, and then creating the shape of the dress. In many instances the pattern and the shape of the print dictate the cut of the dress. In 1970 she established her own house, and her original and individualistic designs became her trademark. Her floating, feminine dresses in luxurious silks, organzas and chiffons are often trimmed with feathers, pearls, sequins and beads. Her unique, unconventional way of decorating fabrics includes patterns that have no repeats and that range from plant and floral motifs, such as cactus and lily, to arrows, zigzags and strange shapes with jagged edges and wriggled lines.
This evening dress is representative of Zandra Rhodes’s aesthetic preferences: a luxurious hand-printed silk georgette with uneven hand-rolled hems and embroidered with pearls. The dress is worn over a spandex underdress embroidered with rhinestones and beads.
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