A Black taffeta evening jacket by Agnès-Drecoll Haute Couture - Paris Circa 1932

Circa 1937 France for Export United States or England Long evening coat in black silk velvet, scarf to tie on the collar closed by two large rhinestone buttons, duchesse satin lining, Labelled Reproduction Lucien Lelong, Paris. This is a license model for export to England or the United States. Some very slight damage to the satin lining at the claw and collar, otherwise clean and flawless. Very good condition of color and conservation. Dimensions: equivalent size 38 France. Height 128 cm, shoulders 38 cm, collar 41 cm, chest 90 cm, waist 84 cm. Lucien Lelong (1889-1958) is a key figure in the history of French haute couture. He designed his first collection in 1914 and took over the family business in 1919 to become successful in the 1920s. In 1934 he launched the first ready-to-wear collection under the label "Edition". Installed at 16 avenue Matignon in Paris, he created in 1925 the "kinetic" silhouette, i.e. a supple, modern, dynamic line. He was the first to imagine, a decade later, the luxury ready-to-wear and to think of the unity of a production from clothing to accessories and perfumes, considering fashion as much in its aesthetic dimension, as in its industrial and commercial dimension. That same year, he made his first trip to the United States. President of the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture from 1937 to 1945, he trained Christian Dior, Robert Piguet...

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In the 1930s when French fashion couturier Jeanne Lanvin (1867-1946) was creating decorative bias-cut silk tulle overlays for her feminine full-skirted sleeveless "robes de style", she designed this black semi-transparent silk-tulle formal jacket featuring diagonally-striped topstitched silk-crepe appliques throughout the bias-cut panels. This sheer geometric-patterned cape-like jacket has a skirt that drapes from an open waistline and a top-fastening bodice with gathered rounded 3/4-length sleeves that each have two arm seams and shirred embroidered cuffs. It could have been the first "swing coat" design that was given that name around 1935, when Lanvin was the "uncontested leader in the haute-couture field"--according to the French Palais Galliera that has collected and exhibited similar garments at its fashion museum in Paris. In New York, TheMet collected a House of Lanvin black evening coat with a similar shape that also features dramatic linear appliques, but in a white starburst that it dates to Spring/Summer 1927. The unprecedented modern look of this Art-Deco women's jacket, which was inspired by 18th-Century French and Spanish topcoats for aristocratic court dresses, may have been good cause for Maison Lanvin to custom-make some close reproductions of a one-of-a-kind couture original for additional clients in Paris, which is implied by the remaining French brand-label noting "Adaptation Jean Lanvin...

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