Twentieth Century
The polonaise underwent another revival in the mid-late 1910s. A 1914 newspaper advert for McCall Patterns found in the Evening Independent announced the 'redingote polonaise' to be the height of fashion in Paris and New York. The Reading Eagle ran a fashion column in November 1915 describing the polonaise of 1914/15 as a French design consisting of a long coat-like overdress of metallic lace or elaborately decorated sheer fabric worn over a plain underdress. Another version of the polonaise was described by the Meriden Daily Journal in September 1917:
Possibly the struggles through which Poland is going, unfortunate Poland with her great genius and her greater misery, have tempted the French to reflect her present disaster in a costume. In the adaptation of the polonaise to modern requirements the floating panels at the side are featured as the main thing. Each designer has tried them out in an individual manner. Usually they are lined with a contrasting colour and fabric. Old gold and Chinese blue alternate with pearl and slate grey as chosen linings. When the polonaise is of dark red velvet or black the lining is of cream or dead white. If we wear it next winter as Paris is showing it at the present moment it will further the evident inclination of the designers and the public to strengthen the fashionable position of the present skirt.After the First World War the term fell out of regular use, although was occasionally used by fashion writers as a descriptive term in the 1930s-50s for any form of draping around the upper skirt. For example, the Ottawa Citizen in 1942 stated:
Black Lyons velvet is seen for dinner gowns, some appliqued with heavy Venice lace which often is draped to form a polonaise line in a slim apron effect at the front of the skirt. Actual polonaise drapery softens the skirts of brocaded black silk dinner dresses, an old fashioned quality enhanced by the addition of high feathered dinner hats.Read more about this topic: Polonaise (clothing)
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