The Short History of Your Little Black Dress aka LBD

More than any other piece of clothing, the LBD is one of the most favorite. It is usually a simple cut and is often quite short. This piece of clothing is considered an essential by many women as they believe it a “rule” that every woman should own a simple, black dress that can be dressed up or down depending on the event or occasion.

In the year 1926 “Coco” Chanel put up a picture in the American Vogue of a short, simple black dress. It was straight and decorated only by a few diagonal lines. Vogue at that time called it “Chanel’s Ford”. The LBD was simple and accessible for women of all social classes and status. Vogue also predicted that the said LBD would become a uniform of some sort for all women of taste. This design, in particular, helped many to separate the color black from mourning, and showcase it as the uniform of the high-class, wealthy, and chic.

I imposed black; it’s still going strong today, for black wipes out everything else around.

-Coco Chanel

Over the years, an array of black dresses have appeared on the fashion scene and became famous. Here is a couple of them.

The black Givenchy dress of Audrey Hepburn as Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany’s and was auctioned in 2006 for £410,000, six times its original price.

Diana, Princess of Wales wore a black dress while at Serpentine Gallery’s summer party, hosted by Vanity Fair in June 1994 which was the night Prince Charles admitted he had a relationship with the Duchess of Cornwall. Diana’s dress is the perfect example of a “little black dress”

The Duchess of Windsor, Wallis Simpson was known to own several little black dresses and was said to praise the garments. She was known to have given this famous quote “When a little black dress is right, there is nothing else to wear in its place.”

An incident at London’s Covent Garden also makes the LBD popular. At a theatre in 2004, a director fired the then-obese soprano Deborah Voigt from an opera because she could not fit into a “little black cocktail dress”, and replaced her with the slimmer Anne Schwanewilms.

Even though black is the symbol of grief, the color black can be serious, professional, and conventional, but it can also represent being mysterious, sexy, and sophisticated. Black is a visually slimming color for clothing and just like other dark colors.

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