The Secretive Folds of the Delphos Dress

Text by Ådne Dyrnesli, Communication Advisor, the National Museum, Norway

Inside a small paper bag is a bundle of light peach-coloured fabric. Gloved hands carefully pull it out. It is wound up – like a cinnamon roll in silk. Textile conservator Eva Düllo carefully unwinds the garment and inspects the seams, threads and cords.

The folds in the silk she has in her hands hold a secret. This is a Delphos gown from the 1920s – an apparently simple, full-length dress with folds, or pleats as they are called. No one has ever managed to duplicate them.

‘The Fortunys took the secret to the grave’, says Janne H. Arnesen, collection advisor at the National Museum in Norway.

Many people have tried, but the silk only retains the pleats for a few days or weeks before the frictionless fabric flattens out again.

‘Here we have a dress that is one-hundred years old, and the pleats are just as firm as when they were first made’, says Arnesen.

Until recently there was no one who thought Henriette Nigrin had anything to do with the design, but now, after a century in the shadow of her husband and collaborative partner Mariano Fortuny, she enters centre stage as the dress’s creator.