sack-back gown
sacque

By the 1770s the sack-back gown was second only to court dress in its formality.

At the beginning of the century, the sack-back gown was a very informal style of dress.

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

The sack-back gown or robe à la française was a women's fashion of the 18th century.

The robe à la française or sack-back gown featured back pleats hanging loosely from the neckline.

The robe à la française or sack-back gown with flowing pleats from the shoulders was originally an undress fashion.

Watteau train - a modern version of the pleated backs (called 'Watteau pleats') seen in 18th century sack-back gowns.

She had donned one of her new garments for the occasion--a striking sack-back gown of rose silk with an ivory under-petticoat supported by small hoops.

Watteau pleats are one or two box pleats found at the back neckline of 18th century sack-back gowns and some late 19th century tea gowns in imitation of these.

She welcomed the visiting Tsar splendidly dressed in a magnificent sack-back gown which showcased her voluptuous bosom as well as her mischievous face but also helped conceal her growing corpulence for she was then in an "interesting condition".

A popular story, traced back to the correspondence of Élisabeth Charlotte d'Orléans, Duchess d'Orléans, is that the earliest form of the sack-back gown, the robe battante, was invented as maternity clothing in the 1670s by Louis XIV's mistress to conceal her clandestine pregnancies.

'It probably comes from the French word sacque, that was a kind of loose blouse.

I'm afraid I shall get cold without my sacque," began Rose, who wanted to stay, but felt rather out of her element. "

At its most informal, this gown was unfitted both front and back and called a sacque.

My silk sacque isn't a bit the fashion, and my bonnet doesn't look like Sallie's.

Over a gold-brocaded stomacher hung a noble sacque made of heavy bombazine.

Let me tell you then, that that sealskin sacque represented the quality and character of your fatal entanglement!

Sitting quietly in Captain Smith's office, she would suddenly mourn for some lost article of clothing, her seal skin sacque or jewelry.

So is my sacque; and as for my hat, though it does well enough here, it would be absurd for Class Day.

Most prominently exhibited is an elderly woman wearing a sacque covered with satirically overblown roses expanded by a large hoop.

For Sacque, Cap and Booties.

A little sacque was eked out, however, and when the frills were on, it was "ravishing," as Kitty said, with a sigh of mingled delight and fatigue.

In 1871 Peterson's Magazine stated that the polonaise was an overdress based on the 18th century sacque, with the bodice cut in one with the gathered-up skirt.

The combatants were the more easy to be distinguished, because the one was stripped to the RIDI and the other wore a holoku (sacque) of some lively colour.

But the queen, who sat beside him in a purple sacque, was more accessible; and there was present an interpreter so willing that his volubility became at last the cause of our departure.

Marten in an open-throated shirt, Gabrielle Deschain in a sacque that had slipped off one shoulder, the whole room reeking of what they had been up to that hot morning?

The women sighed as she cut the hoops away with her little scissors, but they had to agree that when the heavy sacque was allowed to fall free, it looked better for a tall woman. '

Meanwhile, Mr. Merrick, having made a close scrutiny of the lifeless form, had been slowly walking back and forth in the tower-room and library, his hands in the pockets of his short sacque coat and his eyes apparently riveted on the floor.

She had on, that day, a faded blue plush skirt, which barely covered her knees, a brown Cloth sacque, and a pair of olive-green stockings which Miss Minchin had made her piece out with black ones, so that they would be long enough to be kept on.