In the 18th century, ceremonial clothing was so closely connected with Versailles and the French Court that it was commonly called robe à la française. The Robe à la française has a fitted top dress that is open at the front and has a decorative bodice insert called a stomach, covering the corset and the upper skirt, as well as the second skirt seen from under the open drapery of the upper skirt.

In its most formal configuration, the robe à la française is a particularly wide and flattened profile, where wide hips were created with the help of panier. Made from a flexible, bent willow or whalebone and covered by linen fabric, panniers acquired broader or narrower silhouettes. The most remarkable ones held skirts, flattening them, so that they were slightly wider than the body side, but the broadest possible was the front and the back. A woman dressed like that could only walk through the door sideways.

We present you a court dress, dated circa 1750, from Great Britain. It is in storage at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Purchase, Irene Lewisohn Bequest, 1965 (C. I. 65.13.1 a–c). The skirt of this English dress, fifty-five inches wide, is supported by a panier, or side hoops, of curved willow, or a whalebone covered with linen.

Materials: silk and metal threads, sewing. The outfit has an interesting finish. At the bottom of the skirt is trimmed with a wide silver mesh, embroidered with floral patterns of silver metal threads. The same lace trimms bodice and the edge of the peplum, as well as a three-layer sleeve cuffs. The edge of the neckline and cuffs of the sleeves are complemented by lace stitching made of fine fabric.

Stomach is decorated with a floral pattern made of beat (flattened wire), a thin break, twisted wire in the form of springs and sequins. We can have a look at the details of the pattern in detail. In particular, we can see interesting options of beating embroidery, which were sewn throught the cloth, braided the wire, also it created a grid, and a separate chain stitch.

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