Details

Object type

dress

Date

circa 1837

Materials

wool, linen, hand-stitched

Dimensions

bust: 910 mm; footprint: 800 mm x 800 mm; shoulder to hem: 1350 mm; waist: 660 mm

Description

Woman’s dress in dark cream delaine wool printed with stylised sprigs and berries in red, dark red, orange and green. Wide neckline with pleated fichu-style panel with purple piping along each pleat. Fitted bodice fastening centre back with hooks and eyes. Full-length sleeves with three ruched rows around upper arm, full cut lower arm gathered into wrist with cuff edged with purple piping. Slightly high, v-shaped boned waistline with purple piping. Full-length skirt pleated in to waist. Lined with silesia.

Improvements in printing textiles resulted in the production of colourful designs, such as this, in the 1830s and 1840s. Dyes fixed particularly well to light-weight woollen fabrics known as challis or delaine (from the French for ‘of wool’), which made them a popular choice for making warm day dresses.

The dress has the fashionable bishop sleeves that were cut full, but gathered into the upper arm and wrist with a surfeit of material around the lower arm. A contemporary magazine, World of Fashion, noted in 1839 that 'As the sleeve diminishes the corsage fits more closely to the sylph-like forms of young aspirants to fashion … but what can be more unbecoming than to see the present tight apparel upon the person of a lath and plaster damsel, all skin and bone?'

Credit Line/Donor

Gifted by the Misses Robertson, 1954

ID Number

E.1954.10.a

Location

In storage