Indicative of early 1920s trends, this mulberry colored satin dress features gold lamé lace trim, as well as two long hanging bands weighted with tassels to help emphasize the new emerging straight silhouette style of the era.

Elements such as tassels and gold lace filtered into mainstream fashion after Diaghilev’s Central Asian inspired Ballets Russe costumes, which appeared in Paris in 1909. In the late teens and first years of the 1920s hemlines moved slightly above ankle length.

Post World War I fashions were simple, loose at the waist, and easy to wear--vastly different from the high-necked, body encasing garments worn just ten years earlier. No longer restrictive and cumbersome, fashion reflected changing times, particularly women’s shifting roles and increasingly active lifestyle.