All posts tagged: 1903

Emily’s 1903 evening gown: the fabric

Published by The Dreamstress

The museum record for Emily’s pink dress states that it is ‘silk grosgrain’, which is true in a sense, but also highlights the problem with fabric terminologies (they aren’t precise!  They change all the time!  We don’t always know what they meant in the past!). My challenge was to try to identify what Emily’s seamstress would have called the fabric, and to find the same fabric to make my recreation out of. Both of those objectives turned out to be hideously difficult, and while I’ve arrived at some solutions, I’m not entirely happy with either result. First, what is the fabric like? It’s silk.  It’s a pink with just a hint of yellow/orange that manages to be both very vivid, and quite subtle, at the same time.  It has a very fine, very even rib running horizontally across the fabric (in other words, a weftwise rib).  It handles like a very soft taffeta – flowing rather than rustling, but holding in the position it gets folded or sculpted to.  The weight is also similar to …

Emily’s dress: recreating a 1903-1904 evening dress

Published by The Dreamstress

I’m working on a very interesting, and challenging, new project. This is Emily’s dress: It was made for Emily Jane Whitley, the daughter of a wealthy Auckland storekeeper, between 1902 and 1904.  Emily wore it to balls and parties on Auckland’s social scene in the years before her marriage to a Manuwatu farmer, Percy Mildon, in 1905. We even have a photograph of Emily in her dress: It’s a fascinating dress because we know its history, and can make a reasonable guess at how it was made.  The Whitley store sold fabric, and probably had an attached sewing workshop, so it is very likely that the dress fabric came from the family store, and was made up by the store seamstress. So what’s my project?  Well, I’m attempting to recreate not just Emily’s dress, but the whole process of making Emily’s dress. I’m using my 1903 peddle sewing machine, a late 19th century guide to dressmaking, and a period pattern available in a NZ magazine.  I’m even wearing a corset and the type of outfit …