History of the Empire Dress - Folkwear

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A narrow, high-waisted silhouette has recurrently expressed the epitome of grace and femininity in ancient Greece, medieval Europe, Napoleonic France, and into modern day. The Empire Dress of the period 1795-1815 is the simplest and loveliest example; its lack of ornamentation accents a pure integrity of line. Fashion has always been influenced by political and economic factors, both directly and subconsciously. This was strongly evident during and immediately after the French Revolution, when cataclysmic social upheaval was accompanied by radical changes in dress. As in the decade following World War I, a wave of female emancipation brought short hair, rejection of constricting stays and corsets, and body-revealing clothes with the natural waist-line displaced or ignored. The ascendancy of French influence on fashion had reached its peak a few years earlier with Rose Bertin, Marie Antoinette's couturiere, whose extravagant whims swayed