Été 1937

What you are looking at

This is a fashion design sketch for two evening gowns, rendered in mixed media with watercolor and ink on paper. The left figure wears a dramatic floor-length dress in charcoal grey with a high neckline, short structured sleeves with colorful plaid or tartan trim in red, blue, and yellow, and a long column silhouette fastened down the front with buttons or closures. The right figure displays a more elaborate gown: a fitted bodice in grey with exaggerated puffed sleeves in the same plaid fabric, descending into a voluminous tiered skirt composed of multiple horizontal ruffles or flounces in coordinating plaid patterns, creating a spectacular skirt with significant volume and movement. Both figures are rendered as elegant croquis—elongated fashion illustration poses with minimal facial detail—set against a plain cream ground. The sketch emphasizes the silhouette and draping of the garments rather than anatomical precision.

The dancing

Both figures are depicted in stylized fashion-illustration posture with elongated proportions and simplified head forms. The left figure stands in an upright, frontal pose; the right figure adopts a three-quarter turn that displays the back and profile, allowing the full volume of the tiered skirt to unfold. Neither figure is captured in active movement or dance gesture. The poses are static and designed to showcase the architecture of the garments—the structural geometry of the sleeves and the cascading construction of the ruffled skirt.

The dance depicted

This work does not depict dance. The figures are fashion croquis used in garment design, positioned to display clothing construction and silhouette. They are not captured performing or in movement characteristic of any dance genre. The dramatic ruffled skirt and puffed sleeves suggest formality and occasion dress appropriate to evening wear, but there is no evidence of choreographic intention or dance technique.

How it was made

This is a mixed-media sketch executed in what appears to be ink line drawing with watercolor wash and colored pencil or gouache for the plaid trim details. The technique is rapid and gestural—characteristic of professional fashion design practice—allowing the designer to quickly establish silhouette and proportion while adding color notes to communicate fabric pattern and trim placement. The sketch is unfinished in places (note the abbreviated head forms and simple leg lines), which is typical of working drawings intended for internal design use or pattern-maker reference rather than exhibition or publication.

About this work

This is a professional fashion design sketch from 1937, inscribed 'Été 1937' (Summer 1937), by Ana de Pombo. It documents two evening gowns in the design stage, likely intended for haute couture or high-end ready-to-wear production. The work is held in a fashion design collection, marking it as a working tool of the design process rather than a finished artwork for display. The sketch demonstrates the design vocabulary of the 1930s—particularly the use of bold geometric pattern (plaid) as accent and the increasingly dramatic silhouette that would characterize late 1930s evening wear: the structured puffed sleeve and the architecturally constructed skirt with horizontally stacked ruffles.

How to look at it

Attend first to the silhouette: note how the designer has used the plaid trim to frame and structure the shoulders, and how the tiered ruffles of the right skirt create a stepped, pyramidal form that was enormously labor-intensive to construct. Observe the restraint of the left gown—simpler, more streamlined—against the ornamental complexity of the right. The sketch itself is economical; the designer has omitted most anatomical detail, knowing that pattern-makers and seamstresses would work from a more detailed technical specification. What is rendered here is the essential idea: the proportion, the trim placement, the silhouette idea.

The artist

Ana de Pombo was a fashion designer active in the mid-twentieth century. Very little biographical information is readily available; she is documented primarily through her design work held in museum collections. The style of her sketch—economical line work combined with selective color notation—is consistent with professional practice in European haute couture or advanced ready-to-wear design during the 1930s–1940s.

The period

The 1930s saw a dramatic shift in evening wear silhouette. The 1920s had emphasized the straight, unstructured line; by the mid-1930s, designers were reintroducing volume, structure, and ornament—particularly in the shoulder and skirt. The use of bold geometric prints (particularly plaids and tartans) was fashionable as a accent or trim, offering visual interest and ethnographic exoticism. The haute couture houses and advanced ready-to-wear producers of Paris, London, and other European design centers were experimenting with increasingly sculptural construction, evidenced in the structured puffed sleeves and tiered skirt construction shown here.

Where it lives

This work is held in a fashion design collection (catalogue source: va), suggesting it is part of a museum's costume or design holdings. The inscription and artist name are recorded in the catalogue, but no additional provenance or exhibition history is noted in the available record.

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