1858 Brown silk dress
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1858-1863 A brown silk taffeta dress.
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The back of the dress
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One of the sleeves
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Detail of a sleeve showing the tassels trim
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Detail of the waist showing the gap in the seam and one of the buttons at the top of the cords for pulling up the skirt.
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One side of the skirt raised by the cords inside attached to the button at the waist, which can be seen to the right of the sleeve.
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Detail inside the skirt showing one of the cords through the rings for raising the skirt
Description
The brown silk taffeta has black double broken stripes ⅛" wide and ³⁄₁₆" apart.
The bodice is lined with ginger cotton twill, the skirt is lined with fawn glazed cotton, and the sleeves are lined with black tarlatan, now disintegrating. The centre edge of the left bodice front has an 8½" long bone at the waist.
The fronts have wide box-pleats from the shoulders, narrowing towards the waist, and are stitched down for the last 4½". Three wide box-pleats across the back come together at the waist, stitched down for last 3".
The bodice opens at the centre front and there are six pairs of brown silk 1½" long tassels on crocheted rosettes down the right front edge (the tassels are missing on the lowest one) over the fastening of 11 hooks and eyes.
The pagoda sleeves are pleated into the piped armhole seam at the top, and into a 1¼" wide brown velvet ribbon 2½" down, from where they flare out; the pleats are folded sideways and their centres stitched down. Three bands of the velvet ribbon are spaced down the front of the sleeves, with the tassel motifs on the outside ends. The ends of the sleeves have a self facing.
The skirt is flat pleated into the double piped waist seam, with three wide double box-pleats at the centre back. The hem is finished with tan wool plaited braid, ½" wide, sewn between the silk and the hem facing, which is a strip of light brown cotton twill, 2¾" wide.
Spaced round inside the skirt there are eight pairs of metal rings, 10" up from hem and 8" further up. A loop of black cord is threaded through each pair, and at each side of the waist the tops of four of these cords pass through gaps in the waist seam and are attached to a self covered button with which the wearer can pull up the cords to raise skirt all round, out of the mud. It is shown here over the 1850s White cotton petticoat.
Contemporary illustrations
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Detail from a fashion plate, Les Modes Parisiennes, in Peterson's Magazine, October 1859
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Photograph of an unknown young woman c.1860
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Fashion plate from The Englishwoman's Domestic Magazine March 1861
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Sally Bonetta Forbes, 1862. The king of Dahomey presented her to Queen Victoria who paid for her education and was godmother to her first child.
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Detail from a cartoon in Punch, February 1862
