Gres Gold Bow: Micro-Pleat Your Heart Out

Excerpt from the Met Costume Institute

Evening dress

fall/winter 1954–55

Madame Grès (Alix Barton) French

Each draped dress begins with silk jersey panels disposed vertically and seamed together. Grès gathers the panels at the waist, tacking the moderately shirred jersey to its understructure. The bodice continues the shirring into tighter, more complicated pleating that continues the panel to finish in braided summits and bands and leaf and flower simulations, all sustaining the same jersey panels that began below in loose fullness.