Victorian Dress and Christian Lacroix

The gigot sleeve, also called the leg-of-mutton sleeve, experienced two waves of popularity in the 19th century, much like the bustle. The voluminous sleeves first came into popularity in the late 1820s-early 1830s, placed directly below a sloped shoulder. The resurgence of Le Gigot occurred in the 1890s with the expanse of the sleeve placed directly at the shoulder, a sharper and perkier sleeve than the sleeve worn in the beginning of the century. In 1988, Christian Lacroix, a designer whose design philosophy is rooted in historical dressmaking, created a bodice with one sleeve resembling the gigot of the 1890s, perhaps a comment on the trend of the exaggerated shoulder of the 1980s.


Dinner Dress, Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1894-96

Christian Lacroix Bodice at The Kyoto Costume Institute, FW 1988

Christian Lacroix Bodice at The Kyoto Costume Institute, FW 1988

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