ABSTRACT
Bursting on the scene in the summer of 1957, the chemise dress dominated women's fashions for over a year. Testaments to the impact of the dress could be found everywhere: The chemise-and its kissing kin, the flaring trapeze-was selling, according to Eleanor Lambert of the New York Dress Institute, "like nothing since the dirndl skirt of 19321". In New York City, Ohrbach's fashion director Rose Wells indicated that the chemise was accounting for 90 percent of all of the outlet's dress sales. It had some notable antecedents. Allied's Aisenberg reported that "the chemise is running 30 to 50 per cent of our misses business and 50 to 70 percent of our junior dresses". The lower end of the fashion industry-which pushed the trend for all it was worth-also played a major role in the rise of the chemise.
