Evening dress
Silk, gold-embroidered net, satin binding, silk flowers
Lucile Ltd, Paris, France
Design
The ‘Lucile look’ was rendered in cascades of diaphanous chiffon, gossamer light wisps of lace and shimmering silks in delicate colour combinations.
Lucile, Lady Duff Gordon, believed that if dresses were to give any pleasure to their wearer, they must become a part of their personality. She honoured each one with a unique poetic name evocative of a mood, colour, composition or her client’s personality, or took inspiration from literature and popular culture.
Craft Skills
Lucile’s romantic style was suited to the Edwardian age of opulence. Often inspired by the femininity of the late Rococo manner of the painter Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Lucile’s handwriting is in the passementerie comprised of the finest silk ribbon rosettes, lace trimming, self-fabric ruffles and embroidery of almost incredible delicacy.

Learn More
Discover more about Lucile’s extraordinary life in her autobiography, A Woman of Temperament (1932).
For more detail on Lucile and the construction of her picture dresses, see Valerie D. Mendes and Amy de la Haye’s Lucile Ltd: London, Paris, New York and Chicago, 1890s-1930s (London, 2009).
Social Culture