A bouffant gown is a women's dress

silhouette A silhouette (, ) is the image of a person, animal, object or scene represented as a solid shape of a single colour, usually black, with its edges matching the outline of the subject. The interior of a silhouette is featureless, and the silhouett ...

made of a wide, full skirt resembling a

hoop skirt A hoop skirt or hoopskirt is a women's undergarment worn in various periods to hold the skirt extended into a fashionable shape. It originated as a modest-sized mechanism for holding long skirts away from one's legs, to stay cooler in hot clim ...

(and sometimes including a hoop or

petticoat A petticoat or underskirt is an article of clothing, a type of undergarment worn under a skirt or a dress. Its precise meaning varies over centuries and between countries. According to the ''Oxford English Dictionary'', in current British E ...

support underneath the skirt). It may be tea length (mid-calf length) or floor length.

History

Bouffant gowns were a popular silhouette during the mid-19th century. It fell out of style by the end of the 19th century, but re-emerged in the 1930s, to appear in evening gowns during the 1930s and 1940s. It was fully revived in tea-length designs in 1947 by

Christian Dior Christian Ernest Dior (; 21 January 1905 – 24 October 1957) was a French fashion designer and founder of one of the world's top fashion houses, Dior, Christian Dior SE. His fashion house is known all around the world, having gained promi ...

's New Look couture collection. The style remained very popular at calf or ankle length throughout the 1950s.

Popularity

Bouffant gowns fell out of fashion during the 1960s and 1970s, as streamlined skirts became associated with modern trends. The resurgence of Victorian styles during the 1980s, as in the wedding dress of Lady Diana Spencer in 1981, brought the bouffant gown back into style. Today, it is mainly seen in wedding gowns,

Quinceañera In Mexico, Mexican and other Latin American cultures, it is customary to celebrate a girl's 15th birthday. In Spanish language, Spanish, the girl celebrating her 15th birthday is called a ; in English language, English, primarily in the Unite ...

gowns, or ball gowns.

References

Gowns Skirts Dresses 19th-century fashion 20th-century fashion {{Clothing-stub