1840 Lilac satin dress
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1838-1846 A dress in lilac silk satin.
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The back of the dress
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Detail of the front waist
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Detail showing the top of one of the sleeves
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Detail showing under the frills where the detachable lower sleeve is stitched on
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The three buttons on the end of a sleeve
Description
The dress is mounted on natural cotton. There are bones on the side and centre front bodice seams, the front darts and the right edge of the centre back opening.
The back of the bodice is fastened by eight hooks and worked bars, and a self covered button and worked loop at the neck. The armhole seams and neck edge are piped, and the neck edge is trimmed with ⅝" wide blonde lace edging, now fragile. There are six rows of piping round the lower edge, which goes into a point at the centre front and is fastened with a hook and eye at the back.
The front has a bertha of the satin which has eight tucks; it is 3½" wide at the shoulders where it is sewn into the piped seams, and it widens to 6¾" deep where it mitres at the centre front. The top edge is 1" down from the centre front neck edge.
The sleeves have a trimming of three rows of frills made of bias strips of the satin folded lengthways and box-pleated. The are 1½" deep and overlap with 1" showing; along the top there is another bias strip, folded lengthways, about ½" wide. The frill strips are not pleated for about 4" as they go under the arms. The sleeves under the frills have a finished edge with piping, and the lower sleeves have a finished top edge with a ¼" hem; they could be unpicked leaving the dress with short sleeves, maybe for evening wear. The full tops of the lower sleeves are gathered into their hems round the back, and they narrow from the elbow down to the ends where they have a 3" opening fastened by three covered buttons and worked loops; the sleeve seams are piped. Some black bobbin lace edging had been sewn round the inside of the ends but only fragments of this remain.
The skirt is cartridge pleated into a self waistband, 1" wide, except for 2" at the centre front where it is flat under the bodice point. The top edge of the waistband is sewn above the inside of the bodice lower edge which is mostly sewn to the skirt at the top of the pleats. The skirt has an opening 9¾" long at the centre back, and the hem is faced with a band of slightly darker plain silk, 5½" wide, and has a piped edge.
Contemporary illustrations
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Woman in a light blue dress by Johann Baptist Reiter, 1840. Galerie Belvedere, Vienna
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Fashion plate in Le Follet, March 1841
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Fashion plate in Le Follet, April 1841
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Fashion plate in Le Bon Ton, September 1841
