Dressing Up: The Women Who Influenced French Fashion

How wealthy American women—as consumers and as influencers—helped shape French couture of the late nineteenth century; lavishly illustrated.

French fashion of the late nineteenth century is known for its allure, its ineffable chic—think of John Singer Sargent's Madame X and her scandalously slipping strap. For Parisian couturiers and their American customers, it was also serious business. In Dressing Up, Elizabeth Block examines the couturiers' influential clientele—wealthy American women wh...