Evening dress
Jean Patou · 1928–30
Jean Patou
- Sportswear
- Fluid eveningwear
Jean Patou served Parisian and American clients with designs that connected fashionable dress to an active modern life. The Met places him alongside Chanel in the development of sportswear fabrics and separates.
Official house website
Five looks to know
Collection selection
Evening dress
1928–30
A dark silk evening dress preserves the long, loose torso and decorative hem associated with late-1920s eveningwear. Transparent sections and an irregular lower edge complicate its otherwise narrow silhouette. The Met dates it across 1928–30, a useful reminder that changing hemlines and proportions did not follow decade boundaries exactly.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Collection selection
Evening ensemble
ca. 1931
Patou paired this fluid evening dress with a small removable cape. According to The Met, its hand-painted silk satin and modest silhouette could move between early-evening gatherings and formal nightwear. The ensemble records the turn away from shortened 1920s skirts toward the full-length, gently draped lines favored in the early 1930s.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Collection selection
Byzance
1924 · V&A collection
Silk, embroidered with glass bugle beads and imitation baroque pearls, lined with georgette and fastened with metal hooks and eyes.
©Victoria and Albert Museum, London/Jean Patou
Collection selection
Cocktail suit
mid 1930s · V&A collection
crepe, cotton lawn.
© Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Collection selection
Evening dress
ca. 1935 · V&A collection
Silk chiffon.
© Victoria and Albert Museum, LondonArchive pieces, grouped by date
2 pieces1928–30
1 piece · Season not recorded
ca. 1931
1 piece · Season not recorded
Evening ensemble
Jean Patou · ca. 1931
About Jean Patou
His evening clothes track a changing silhouette: shortened late-1920s styles gave way to the long, fluid dresses and adaptable capes of the early 1930s.