Robe à l'Anglaise, French, 1784–87, cotton, metal, silk. Length at CB (a): 63 in. (160 cm). Length at CB (b): 36 in. (91.4 cm). Purchase, Isabel Shults Fund and Irene Lewisohn Bequest, 1991. 1991.204a, b. The Metropolitan Museum of Art © 2000–2016 The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Cotton emerged as a fashionable fabric in the 1780s with the chemise à la reine, the cotton shift favored by Marie Antoinette beginning in this turbulent decade. As always, clothing had political and international implications. One of the chief reasons the Lyon silk manufacturers railed against the reductive modern attire is that their luxurious silks were being abandoned in favor of imported cottons from India, confirmed in the costume on the right by a weaver's mark in the selvage.