Updated August 17, 2011
Today’s popular trapeze dress is a first cousin of the shift dress, which first appeared during the 1920s. Flappers wore these dresses decorated with beads or fringe. The ideal silhouette for a 1920s woman became a flat figure in a straight, shapeless, and short dress. Many women bound their breasts to achieve the desired boyish shape.Flash forward to the 1960s when British model Twiggy popularized the boyish look again, and trapeze dresses reappeared. Abstract prints, such as those designed by Pucci, were all the rage. Fashion designers of the 1960s thought that an abstract print and a trapeze dress made the perfect marriage.
Today’s designers are on the same page with this look. For spring and summer 2008, you’ll find some version of the trapeze dress in every store from Target to Neiman Marcus. If we look back and do some simple subtraction, we can see that the shapeless dress trend has emerged about every 40 years, proving that if we wait long enough, most styles come back.
