The Dress that Started a Revolution
Before there was the 1920s flapper, there was the Delphos gown.
How does a dress start a revolution? This is the question we will be exploring in the latest Crossroads video. The Delphos gown was designed around 1907 and patented in 1909 for Mariano Fortuny’s Venetian fashion house. Long believed to have been designed by Fortuny himself, historians now know that the credit belongs to his wife: Henriette Negrin.
Negrin sought to design a dress for the modern woman—a dress that was cleverly constructed to accommodate a woman’s body as it changed over the years, and would allow its wearers to move freely. The result is nothing short of fabulous.
I went to the Fortuny flagship store in Venice last May and saw some Delphos dresses "in the flesh." They're works of art.