Dress c. 1936

Dorothy Gernon created this dress design using graphite and colored pencil. The subject evokes 18th century France, a time of elaborate courtly ritual and extreme social inequality. The dress appears to be a court dress. Its wide panniers would have amplified a woman’s presence, while also requiring a lot of space. Dresses like this were worn by aristocratic women who would compete for the favor of the king at the Palace of Versailles. The design also contains visual references to the Ancien Régime, and was made sometime in the 20th century. Was Gernon critiquing the inequalities of her own time by comparing them to a previous era? Or was she celebrating a lost aesthetic of beauty and elegance? We can research the artist's history and her other works for an understanding of her social and political views. We can also explore her other works and the institutions in which she operated to find further insights into this design.