Dress

White silk satin open robe with sack-back; lined with fine plain weave white silk. Straight elbow-length sleeves, cut with the warp running horizontally, are finished with a pair of scalloped ruffles. The dress is cut to accomodate side hoops and the fullness at the back is controlled by the insertion of vertical lacing panels of linen. The dress has bound side slits for pocket access. The neck and front edges of the dress, sleeves and ruffles are trimmed with white silk fly braid. The dress is completely ornamented with wadded and corded quilting which is worked to create a design of undulating stalks of stylised flowers and foliage intertwining with flowing patterned ribbons finished with a narrow border pattern which incorporates shell motifs running along the hem and front edges. The design appears to have been drawn to shape but perhaps modified for this particular dress. The sleeves are each embroidered with a single flower sprig running vertically below the head of the sleeve. The embroidery of the sleeve ruffles includes small and large flower motifs and scallop shells. The quality of the design and execution suggests that the robe is the work of professional embroiderers produced in a London workshop.
Catalogue note by Natalie Rothstein. This is the quilted dress, both the satin and the fly braid are clearly of the date of the cut. No measurements are possible because of the quilting. The silk could be English or French or even Chinese. It is lined and in good condition so no selvages are visible.
Description: see above; has matching petticoat and compere style stomacher; dress fronts are pleated into double fold robing configuration that extends into skirt
Construction Details: dress has no waist seam, skirt fullness is pleated into side seams, which have semi-finished edges folded to inside of bodice and whip stitched at folded edge; dress back is pleated into 2 sets of double box pleats at the back neckline/shoulders, these are sewn into a narrow yoke binding, this is faced on the inside of the dress with a wide figured cream silk ribbon; sleeve seams are lapped and stab stitched, and somehow clean finished on the inside; falling cuffs are cartridge pleated and tacked to the sleeve ends; sleeves are set into underarms and back stitched, sleeve heads are cartridge pleated and tacked down to bodice shoulder, which is then covered by the folds of the robings, the seam allowance edges are turned in towards each other and overcast with spaced whip stitches; dress hem is finished with wide cream silk ribbon that is bound to approx 1/16” on the outside and sewn with small fell stitches from the outside and acts as a facing on the inside, the upper edge of which is sewn with small running stitches; there are narrow linen panels sewn into the bodice to the front of the side seams, presumably for attaching/pinning the edges of the stomacher
Alteration Notes: may be unaltered; there is a small wedge pieced into bodice side seams at underarm, but it is unclear whether this is original or an alteration for size (possibly an alteration performed during initial construction?)
Additional Notes: excellent ensemble for display; bit unsure of the date given, I thought compere fronts didn’t come about until the 1760s; see article in Costume 24, 1990, “An Eighteenth-Century Quilted Dress” by Kay Staniland