Dress #117: Charles James cocktail dress in brown

This hand-stitched paper dress is based on a brown silk cocktail dress made by Charles James between 1952-1954 as a sample for New York ready-to-wear manufacturer Samuel Winston. That relationship eventually ended in a lawsuit for breach of contract, as James was convinced that Winston was stealing his designs for one of his other labels, without crediting James. James eventually won back pay, but did not succeed with the claim of piracy.

Charles James is considered by the Met to be the ‘only American to work in the true couture tradition’. His dresses were complicated constructions, many of them created through draping on the bodies of his customers, or using custom dress forms that combined the measurements of his customer with the fanciful contours used to sculpt the dresses into the desired shapes.

The dress is six inches tall, stitched by hand on 8x10 inch 100% cotton watercolour paper, which means that it will pop right into any commercial frame in that size, and be ready to hang on your wall.

Materials: Nepalese lokta paper and cotton floss on cotton paper; 24.5 x 20.3 cm (10 x 8")