Dress #56.2: Charles James cocktail dress in blue-grey Bison and held by the Metropolitan

and held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art (accession 2009

The sleeveless

They can be found happily hanging out (though you wouldn’t know it to look at them) in shallow lagoons

Based on Victoria & Albert Museum accession 700-1864

This frothy pink robe à la française

Dress #56.2: Charles James cocktail dress in blue-grey Bison and held by the MetropolitanThis hand stitched paper dress is based on a cocktail dress created by Charles James in 1949; the original, in blue grey silk, is held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art (accession 2009. 300. 200). My first version of this cocktail dress used a black paper patterned with gold; Ive since become much more obsessed with using paper that evokes the original fabric. This version used a Nepalese lokta paper with subtle shimmer. Charles James is considered by