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Day dress, ca. 1867, American, silk, Metropolitan Museum of Art C.I.40.164.1a—c

Rate the Dress: Brilliant Blue & Ridiculously Big Skirts

I’m back on schedule with Rate the Dress this week, but still feeling blue – or at least that blue is the right hue for Rate the Dress!

This week we go from all the subdued evening blues of last week’s tea gown, to a brilliant blue 1860s number, with equally exciting (if quite different) sleeves. How will it fare in comparison?

Last Week: a 1910s Worth tea gown

Generally you felt that a dress by ultimate design house (albeit one in decline), purchased by a woman with all the money in the world at her disposal, should be good, and was.

There were a few small niggles though. A number of you felt the dress was less than the sum of its parts. Beautiful in details, but the details didn’t add up right, or were too much altogether.

The Total: 9.3 out of 10

Almost perfection, but not quite…

This week: an 1860s day dress in bright blue

Since I’m still in the mood for blue, and not everyone was sold on last week’s muted hues, I present a very different blue: a vivid shade in keeping with the bright hues popular in the 1860s.

The bright colour might be one of the fashionable new aniline shades: bleu de Lyon or bleu de Paris perhaps. It might also have been dyed with indigo. Most of the early aniline blues were either lighter, or very purple. It wasn’t until the 1890s that a successful synthetic alternative to indigo was invented, and consequently indigo remained a popular and heavily utilised dye long after coal based aniline dyes had replaced many other natural alternatives.

The dress is a very fashionable late 1860s day dress, with an enormous skirt, just beginning to have its fullness focused towards the back, anticipating the first bustle era.

The comfortably loose (or oddly bulky, depending on your feelings about 1860s fashion) sleeves are topped with short, full puffs, their volume and width serving to balance the full skirt, and emphasise the narrow waist and dropped shoulders.

The smooth silk of the dress allows us to see the line of stitching holding the very deep hem. The large facing helps the wide skirt to sit smoothly over its hoops, and pprovides some protection as it sweeps the ground.

The dress primarily relies on its striking hue, and the cut of the sleeves, pleats of the skirt, and points of the bodice, for visual interest. The only other bits of ornamentation are the large buttons (probably metal), and the small ruffle of lace framing the narrow collar.

What do you think? Is it beautiful, or boring?

Rate the Dress on a Scale of 1 to 10

A reminder about rating — feel free to be critical if you don’t like a thing, but make sure that your comments aren’t actually insulting to those who do like a garment. Phrase criticism as your opinion, rather than a flat fact. Our different tastes are what make Rate the Dress so interesting. It’s no fun when a comment implies that anyone who doesn’t agree with it, or who would wear a garment, is totally lacking in taste.

(as usual, nothing more complicated than a .5. I also hugely appreciate it if you only do one rating, and set it on a line at the very end of your comment, so I can find it! And 0 is not on a scale of 1 to 10. Thanks in advance!)

The NZSEHR 2019 in 1360s Medieval gowns thedreamstress.com

The 2nd Annual NZ Sew & Eat Historical Retreat

Published by The Dreamstress

After the success of the 2018 NZSEHR, with food, and sewing, and pretty, pretty pictures, the Wellington historical sewing ladies decided we definitely needed to do it again in 2019.

So we picked a sewing theme, and booked the adorable cottage we had last year, and spent our year sewing and planning and dreaming.

And, once again, disaster struck – although this time the disaster was limited to us, and didn’t shut down the whole city!

Instead of an overturned truck closing down the main road, the cottage had to cancel our booking, leaving us scrambling to find a suitable place at short notice, on one of the busiest weekends of the year.

Happily, we found another cute cottage to rent. This time instead of heading up highway 1, along the Kapiti Coast, we headed out to the Wairarapa on highway 2, crossing the Rimutaka Hills, hitting Featherston (where the Time Travellers Ball was held) and turning towards the sea and driving down along between the hills and Lake Wairarapa.

We were sad to loose the place we stayed last year, because it was so lovely, but our new cottage, and the locale, turned out to be fabulous in their own right.

I’ve never seen Lake Wairarapa, or spent any time in that area of the Wairarapa. The lake wasn’t much to see: it’s shallow, muddy, and, unfortunately, heavily polluted; but the landscape was gorgeous. Marshes and swamps along the lake, with black swans by the dozens. And old growth forests, with ancient kowhai trees just at the end of their springtime blooms, dripping in a glory of yellow blossoms.

Nina and I drove along in a chorus of “ooooh, look!” sticking to a tranquil country pace and being altogether much more relaxing than last years white knuckle mountain traverse!

Plus being on a farm was fun: sheep and cows to watch, and pet piggies to feed, and so many birds. We saw more native kererÅ« (NZ Bird of the Year 2018) than I see in a year in Wellington, and fantails, and eastern rosella, quails and pukeko, and even a rÅ«rÅ« (Morepork – the tiny native owl), which I have never seen in the wild.

There were walks to go on, a river to hang out by, a reserve of old trees, and history to explore. The family that owned the farm had been there since the 1840s, and it was wonderful to feel a part of their history for the weekend. The cottage we stayed in was an old farmworkers cottage, probably built in the 30s or 40s, and expanded and renovated.

It was all so gorgeous, and I took SO many photos. Here’s some highlights, featuring Nina of Smash the Stash, Eloise of Linen and Lining, Hvitr of Historical Living and Priscilla-who-doesn’t-have-a-blog. Sadly Zara wasn’t able to make it.

Saturday:

The NZSEHR 2019 in Regency thedreamstress.com

Sunday

The NZSEHR 2019 in Augusta Stays thedreamstress.com

Sunday evening

Tea Gown, House of Worth (French, 1858—1956), ca. 1910, French, silk, rhinestones, metal, Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2009.300.3277

Rate the Dress: a Worth tea gown for the wealthiest woman

Published by The Dreamstress

I gave you an extra few days for Rate the Dress, because last week’s was so late. And I’m still feeling very rushed and busy, so have picked a Rate the Dress that’s all about relaxing, albeit in the poshest way possible.

Last Week: an 1860s fancy dress

Last week’s Rate the dress was fancy in a different way to this weeks: fancy dress, rather than fancy, fancy. But what we could see of the trim and construction was also quite fancy: indicating a very well made, high quality item, for a client with money to spend on a one-off costume.

But that didn’t translate to likes: the ratings were all over the place, from 2 to 10. The final result?

The Total: 6.4 out of 10

Personally, I have a sneaking suspicion it would have rated much higher if we could have seen how it was worn: fully accessorised and styled.

This week: a tea gown by the House of Worth

Tea gowns were always status symbols: the Victorian & Edwardian versions of designer jeans and T-shirts. Too fancy to do any work in, but far too informal to wear anywhere but indoors amongst your closest friends. But this tea gown is the fanciest of the fanciest: made by the House of Worth, worn by the wife of one of the richest men in the world.

Socialite Jane Norton Grew (1868—1925) married J.P. Morgan Jr in 1890. Raised in privilege, a Boston ‘Brahmin’ and the daughter of a banker, Grew would have been used to the ultimate in fashion and high society. By marrying in to the banking Morgan family she could expect to continue a life of luxury.

However, wealth and luxury didn’t necessarily translate into obvious ostentation. Like her husband and father in law, Jane preferred to keep out of the public eye. Even within her own social circle, the blond beauty did not aspire to be the leading light. She was reserved and formal (her husband referred to her as ‘cold roast Boston’), and the little public records of her life show no attempts to be noteworthy.

It’s no surprise then that Jane’s preferred design house was the House of Worth. By the early 20th century Maison Worth had ceased to be the clothier of the trendsetter and innovator, and was instead the lead couturier to the impeccable conservative.

However, the few surviving Worth garments belonging to Jane are among the bolder and more interesting for their years. Did Jane have a secret flair, or did she only keep the more outre of her purchases, which she rarely had occasion to wear?

What do you think of this dress, with its medley of soft blues, combinations of different design influences, and use of a bold silk, typical of the House of Worth’s long association with the French silk industry.