But it leaves you with a question that may spring eternal in the presence of all elaborate gowns: Just how did she get into it?

"So very sad," he sighed, then retied the belt of his elaborate gown.

An elaborate gown would only have distracted from her.

She had entered the front door, wearing an elaborate dressing gown and fancy slippers.

True, the men were wearing evening clothes and the women displaying elaborate gowns, but they were lounging about, very much at home.

In the 18th century, formal dress started as the mantua, but later developed into the elaborate sack-back gown.

With fewer events to dress up for, New York socialites aren't buying elaborate gowns.

Last week in Seattle we sold nine elaborate $10,000 gowns.

A beautiful but sulky young woman stood there, wearing an elaborate gown.

The older woman, dressed in an elaborate but unbecoming gown, spokecoldly to her daughter.