Two fabrics, two jobs. The body of this dress is deep peacock velvet, seamed close through the bodice and over the hip so it holds the figure without a single dart out of place. Everything else — the yoke, the balloon sleeves, the skirt — is a lighter, sharper teal taffeta that throws light back where the velvet swallows it. Held together, the two register as one colour and two temperatures.
The neckline runs wide across the shoulders over a curved sweetheart front. The sleeves are full to the elbow and gathered into buttoned cuffs. Below the drop waist the taffeta gathers into a bubble hem and is caught up at the hip with a bow tied at generous scale, in the way that only the 1980s ever tied a bow.
No maker's label survives, but the construction argues against mass-market: shaped princess seaming front and back, a properly set sleeve head, a lined bodice, an exposed centre back zip. Dated to the mid-to-late 1980s by silhouette alone — the balloon sleeve, the dropped waist and the pouf hem sit together in that one window.Two fabrics, two jobs. The body of this dress is deep peacock velvet, seamed close through the bodice and over the hip so it holds the figure without a single dart out of place. Everything else — the yoke, the balloon sleeves, the skirt — is a lighter, sharper teal taffeta that throws light back where the velvet swallows it. Held together, the two register as one colour and two temperatures.
The neckline runs wide across the shoulders over a curved sweetheart front. The sleeves are full to the elbow and gathered into buttoned cuffs. Below the drop waist the taffeta gathers into a bubble hem and is caught up at the hip with a bow tied at generous scale, in the way that only the 1980s ever tied a bow.
No maker's label survives, but the construction argues against mass-market: shaped princess seaming front and back, a properly set sleeve head, a lined bodice, an exposed centre back zip. Dated to the mid-to-late 1980s by silhouette alone — the balloon sleeve, the dropped waist and the pouf hem sit together in that one window.