March 21, 2007

Trompe L'oeil

I was flipping through the March issue of Domino magazine when this amazing trompe l'oeil dress caught my eye. It reminded me of one of my very favorite Anna Sui dresses, a black and white version of the one pictured below in green. Turns out the one in this picture is a vintage dress by Roberta di Camerino, an Italian designer who famously printed faux pockets, buttons, belts and other details on clothing and handbags in the 1960s. If you look closely at the photograph, you'll notice that the entire dress is made out of one piece of fabric - the blue shirt and cuffs are even connected. It's brilliant!

In French, trompe l'oeil means "to fool the eye". Here are a few other of my favorite trompe l'oeil articles of clothing throughout the 20th Century:

Elsa Schiaparelli sweater from 1929


Vintage Roberta di Camerino dress


Anna Sui, Fall 2001


From the 2006 Roberta di Camerino collection, available in (you guessed it) Japan.


Guys & girls tuxedo T-shirts!

2 comments:

baffle said...

For those of us who prefer our ensembles to be one-piece (like unstructured dresses), these are IDEAL!

No pinching belts or skirt waistlines, shifting jackets, dangling necklaces, untied ties.

Which one is your fave?

Jessamyn Harris said...

what about those ones where you wear the torso of a "hot bikini babe" or "studly muscley guy"?
just teasing. I like these.