Dress

Dress from the late eighteenth century, altered from an earlier style. It is made of pale mauve-grey silk with alternating satin and tabby stripes with a small sprig in lbue and black on the tabby stripe. There are comparable patterns in the last pages of a pattern book holding samples from 1770-1780 (T.374-1972) held by the V&A Museum and in the next consecutive volume (T.377-1972).

The dress in its present form is in the voluminous high-waisted wrap-over style of the end of the century. However, the material is stiffer than the silks or cottons fashionable in newly-made dresses of that date and, from the remains of pinked ruffles and numerous other pieces of material received with the dress, it would appear to have been re-modelled from a robe and underskirt of a decade or more earlier. The unpicked pieces include a stomacher with buttons, and scalloped sleeve frills.

The neckline of the dress and the sleeve edges are trimmed with cream silk braid/gimp. The skirt is box pleated across the back; the sleeves cup the elbow. The skirt panels are joined with running stitch; the bodice centre back and middle back seams have edges finished before joining with tiny herringbone stitches near the finished edges; bodice side panels appear to be sewn to back with running stitch, the bodice fronts are mounted to the side panels also with running stitch; back waist seam is sewn with backstitch; sleeves are set into the underarm and sewn with backstitch, the bodice fronts are sewn over top of the pleated sleeve heads with prick stitches; a dart is taken in the sleeve to make it curve over the elbow, a small triangular gusset/godet is inserted at the inner elbow to accommodate the bend; the sleeve seam is lapped and sewn with running/prick stitches with the silk and lining layers worked as one and the seam allowances left raw. It is unclear if anything remains of the earlier construction apart from the separate pieces (39.115a) and the bodice back. This is an entire remake of a dress. It is unclear whether the re-make was ever actually finished – the shape of the garment is somewhat unusual. (Notes on construction adapted from Carolyn Dowdell's.)