Detail of the back darts and seams.

Wedding dress by Charles James for Baba Beaton, 1934 The Parisian fashion designer Madeleine Vionnet (1876 – 1975) is credited with having invented the bias cut. She commented: ‘Maybe because everyone else made dresses that flowed in the same direction, I saw that if I turned the fabric on an angle… it gained elasticity’.Read more