c. 1930

Woman's Evening Coat

Mariano Fortuny synthesized art, anthropology, and history to create garments and textiles that span both time and geography. Inspired by Renaissance Italy and the Middle and Far East, Fortuny developed techniques to produce remarkable fabrics such as pleated silks and the luxurious velvet printed with metallic pigments seen here. The fabric and style of this three-quarter-length coat derive from a seventeenth-century Persian example. The buttons are glass beads made on the island of Murano, near Venice, the Spanish designer’s adopted city.