This heavy, elaborately embellished dress comes straight out of Jazz Age Paris, where Anna King purchased it in 1926. Flapper dresses like these were specifically designed for dancing, as movement accentuates the dress.

The 1920s marked the first time in the history of Western Civilization that popular fashion revealed women’s legs. Young, progressive women seeking social equality rejected corsets and adopted formless sacque dresses, using fashion to express both a political stance and new perspectives of themselves. Mainstream stores soon picked up on the trends and marketed this new style of dress to a broader population; Anna King, for example, was 46 when she purchased this dress. What began as ideological display became commercialized and popularized for the masses.