The LBD, as the little black dress is so affectionately known, seems to be one of the few garments that has and forever will stand the test of time. It sits at the top of a Reader’s Digest article for the ’14 classic dresses every woman should own’, is the job interview look that has never gone out of style and is a staple for any party girl. Being able to be worn in all circumstances might be what allows it to achieve its survival, because since (and in some cases even before) Coco Chanel debuted the LBD on the cover of Vogue in 1926, the garment has seen it all.
So let go of the assumption that the dress is destined for funerals and realize that since the turn of the century it has been the highlight of scandals, parties and (perhaps most shockingly) love!
Madame X’s slip shoulder dress.
In 1884 when John Singer Sergant finally debuted the portrait of Parisian ‘it’ girl Virginie Gautreu neither could have assumed the public outcry that would begin. All because of a single shoulder strap-and to think we accused school dress codes of being overly obsessed with our shoulders!
The small background you might need in this is that Gautreu was known for her relationships with men that weren’t *ahem* her husband. For this single small, and common fact the public assumed that the fallen shoulder strap symbolized her loose morals and lack of fidelity to her husband…because men in the 1800’s were always faithful to their wives, aren’t you forgetting?
The scandal went so far that it forced Sergant to leave Paris and change the title of the portrait’s name from ‘Portrait of Madame Gautreau’ to ‘Portrait of Madame X’.
For Gatreau, she retreated from society after people continued to make jokes about her, in one awful letter found after her death she wrote, “I will try to get over the sadness which for several days has overwhelmed me and which makes me depressed enough to die.” Long after her death, she got the last laugh. The iconic dress still influences fashion today with Cate Blanchet having, as Tom and Lorenzo put it, “her Madame X moment” at the 2018 Venice Film Fest.
Who knew a scandal could just be stirred by a black dress and a fallen shoulder strap!
Sarah Jessica Parker’s black wedding dress
A black Morgane Le Fay wedding dress took the place of white in SJP’s impromptu wedding in 1997 to Mathew Broderick. Later, Parker would explain to Marie Claire that the choice was because “I was too embarrassed to get married in white, and both Matthew and I were reluctant to have people pay so much attention to us.”
Sadly, while the dress influenced many unconventional brides and is still talked about twenty years later, it’s a choice that Parker regrets. Now if she were to do her wedding over again she’d want it to have an “Oscar de la Renta feel, pockets below the waist, a very fitted bodice, a huge skirt, in taffeta and duchesse satin.” As she told Marth Sterwart Brides in 2015.
Still, there’s no denying that with their two-decades long marriage SJP and Mathew Broderick pulled the little black dress in for a moment of love.
Read the rest of the article with all other times the LBD was involved in mourning, revenge, classics, feminism and more at this link: https://sydneyywrites.wixsite.com/sydneyyeager/post/proof-the-lbd-has-seen-it-all
