Art Deco Jeanne Lavin Embroidered Appliqued Tulle Silk Black Jacket 1930s
By Jeanne Lanvin
Located in Chicago, IL
In the 1930s when French fashion couturier Jeanne Lanvin (1867-1946) was creating decorative bias-cut silk tulle overlays for her feminine full-skirted sleeveless "robes de style", she designed this black semi-transparent silk tulle formal jacket featuring diagonally striped topstitched silk-crepe appliques throughout the bias-cut panels. This sheer geometric-patterned cape-like jacket has a skirt that drapes from an open waistline and a top-fastening bodice with gathered rounded 3/4-length sleeves that each have two arm seams and shirred embroidered cuffs. The jacket can be styled slightly differently given its four small black hooks on the upper bodice above the bust. In our photos, we only fastened the top hook. Worthy of "sleeping beauty" status in a museum collection or fashion school, the design was among the first "swing coats" that were given that name around 1935 when Lanvin was the "uncontested leader in the haute-couture field"--according to the French Palais Galliera that has collected and exhibited similar garments at its fashion museum in Paris. As a match to a dress collected by Musee Galliera, another 1stDibs dealer has listed a damaged 1931 Jeanne Lanvin "Art Deco tulle gown" priced at $37,500, whose maxi-dress overlay is similarly constructed with ribbon-like silk strips to create a unique bold pattern. In New York, The Met collected a 1927 House of Lanvin black evening coat with a similar shape to ours, which also features dramatic linear appliques but in a white starburst. The unprecedented modern look of this Art-Deco women's jacket, which was inspired by 18th-Century French and Spanish topcoats for aristocratic court dresses, seems to have been good cause for Maison Lanvin to custom-make some close reproductions of a one-of-a-kind couture original for additional clients in Paris, which is implied by the remaining French brand label noting "Adaptation Jean Lanvin...
