Friday, January 15, 2016

My Collection: Black beaded paisley Alexis gown

This gown was worn by Joan Collins as Alexis Carrington Colby on "Dynasty", to the 1986 Golden Globe Awards, in a photo shoot, on the cover of People magazine, and to other awards functions.

Joan wore this gown in episode 140 of season 6 "The Trial (Part II)".

Alexis wears this gown in a scene at her penthouse apartment with Blake's brother Ben.  Alexis and Ben are sharing a celebratory evening after successfully incriminating Blake for the death of his and Ben's mother.

The body of the gown is black fabric sewn with black bugle beads in a zig-zag pattern.  The sleeves and back of the gown are sheer flesh colored fabric sewn with beads and rhinestones of different shapes, sizes, and colors in a paisley design.  The paisley design incorporates leaves, flowers, paisley configurations, and other patterns.  The sweetheart neckline has cut outs on either side of the décolletage, while the bust area is lined with three rows of black bugle beads, which trace a line around the back of the gown separating the black and sheer fabric.  The paisley pattern is made up of black bugle beads, silver metallic bugle beads, black rhinestones in three different sizes, diamond rhinestones in three different sizes, black round seed beads, metallic silver round seed beads, black square seed beads, and silver metallic square seed beads.  In total this gown is comprised of ten different types of beads and has the most intricate beadwork of any gown on the show.  The gown features a high center slit and shoulder pads.

More beading and the cut outs on either side of the décolletage were added to the gown between the time it was worn for the People magazine cover and when it appeared on Dynasty.





















Joan at the 1986 Golden Globe Awards