By Chanel
Located in London, GB
This elegant Chanel monochrome evening dress was ordered directly from the spectacular Fall 1996 Haute Couture show, held at the Ritz, Paris, in January of that year. It is a long sleeve version of Look 52 and in all other respects is the same as the runway presentation design. Anna Wintour felt that the 1996 Haute Couture collection marked a change in the industry, writing in her editor’s letter for Vogue that this collection “moved daringly and definitively away from the plain, minimal, and vulnerable look that has characterised so many clothes over the past five years”.
Even for haute couture, there is an incredible level of craftmanship in this dress which took 140 hours to make plus over 200 hours for the embroidery. The renowned French atelier, Hurel, created and hand-worked the design for Chanel. We understand the price for this dress was over $100,000 and that was back in 1996. The fabric is a translucent silk-chiffon, the top half and the long-sleeves are in charcoal black, and the handkerchief-hem skirt is in a soft, warm white hue. The cloth is detailed with abstract geometric forms in fine chain-stitch embroidery in contrasting monochrome tones that fall the length of the dress. Every single one hand-embellished along the edges with tiny, rounded beads and we estimate several thousand to be present on the dress. The slim cuffs...
Category
1990s French Evening Dresses