The oyster dress is a high fashion gown created by British fashion designer Alexander McQueen for his Spring/Summer 2003 collection Irere. McQueen's design is a one-shouldered dress in bias-cut beige silk chiffon with a boned upper body and a full-length skirt consisting of hundreds of individual circles of organza sewn in dense layers to the base fabric, resembling an oyster shell. The dress originated as a reinterpretation of the "shellfish dress" designed by John Galliano in 1987, which McQueen had long admired and sought to emulate. Contemporary critical responses to McQueen's oyster dress were positive and it is considered an iconic piece of McQueen's work. Only two copies are known to exist, one held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City and one by media personality Kim Kardashian. McQueen returned to the oyster dress concept several times over his career, most prominently in his Autumn/Winter 2006 collection The Widows of Culloden. (Full article...)
De Viron Castle is a castle in the town of Dilbeek in Flemish Brabant, Belgium. Commissioned by the de Viron family—which had settled in Dilbeek in 1775—the Renaissance Revival castle was built in 1863 by Jean-Pierre Cluysenaar, on the ruins of a 14th-century fortification that had been destroyed the previous year. One of the medieval towers, the Sint-Alenatoren, can still be seen in the park surrounding the current building and is named after Saint Alena, who lived in Dilbeek. The castle has served as the town hall of Dilbeek and housed the offices of the municipality since 1923, and was listed as a Belgian protected monument in 1990. This photograph shows the facade of De Viron Castle with the surrounding park in the foreground.
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I, The4325, award you this barnstar for your contributions.
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