Dress of the Week: Red Silk Dress

A red dress is not for the fainthearted, not for the wallflowers. All shades of crimson and scarlet are made for the bold and the brazen. This is why this gorgeous silk gown has captured my heart.

Dress, silk, Europe or America, 1845-49. Source: The Met Museum

Dress, silk, back, Europe or America, 1845-49. Source: The Met Museum

Dress, silk, detail, Europe or America, 1845-49. Source: The Met Museum

Date: 1845–49 Country: American or European
Medium: silk, velvet? 

There is something almost melancholic about the simplicity and the subtle elegance of this dress. It has very simple trimmings - just a bit of velvet around the sleeves and down the bodice. The heaviness of fabric and the gorgeous shade of red give it an autumnal feel. It makes me think of the wonderful poem by Dorothy Parker.

The Red Dress

I always saw, I always said
If I were grown and free,
I’d have a gown of reddest red
As fine as you could see,

To wear out walking, sleek and slow,
Upon a Summer day,
And there’d be one to see me so
And flip the world away.

And he would be a gallant one,
With stars behind his eyes,
And hair like metal in the sun,
And lips too warm for lies.

I always saw us, gay and good,
High honored in the town.
Now I am grown to womanhood….
I have the silly gown.

Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art