Suit

Design House House of Balmain French
Designer Oscar de la Renta American (born Dominican Republic)

Not on view

Mrs. Kempner's closets yielded a seemingly endless array of tailored suits. Many of the designs incorporated sartorial variations on iconic menswear elements: the spencer, the "Eisenhower" or blouson jacket, the double-breasted "gangster" suit, and the formal blazer. While acknowledging the virtues of traditional menswear, Mrs. Kempner was also an advocate of innovations of cut and detailing in her tailoring. The virtuosity of Balmain's jacket lapel incorporated into a seam to create a trompe l'oeil waistcoat or Saint Laurent's nautical ensemble that supplants a naval uniform's white duck with feminine cotton piqué suggests her interest in witty and novel details.

Suit, House of Balmain (French, founded 1945), a) wool, silk, plastic; b,c) wool, silk, French

Due to rights restrictions, this image cannot be enlarged, viewed at full screen, or downloaded.

Open Access

As part of the Met's Open Access policy, you can freely copy, modify and distribute this image, even for commercial purposes.

API

Public domain data for this object can also be accessed using the Met's Open Access API.