Travel through over 100 years of fashion in this exhibition from the Museum of the City of New York. Images of 119 garments produced by two design houses: Worth, the Paris studio of Englishman Charles Frederick Worth, and Mainbocher, founded by Main Rousseau Bocher, who was born in Chicago, are arranged on a timeline stretching from 1860 - 1967. Biographies of both designers can be read on the website. Many of the dresses were owned and worn by fashionable New York women. The Worth examples begin with the hand-stitched and hoop-skirted garments worn during the Civil War era and end with the slimmer, sleeker lines of the 1920s - dresses that could have been worn by Lady Mary Crawley. Mainbocher designs include U.S. Waves and Girl Scout uniforms from the 1940s and dresses worn by Judy Holliday in the 1946 musical play, "Born Yesterday,” as well as by Mary Martin in, “The Sound of Music.” The Mainbocher suits from the 1960s, the last years covered in the exhibition, would not be out of place on Mad Men.
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