1858 Flounced muslin dress
1858-1860 A dress in muslin printed à disposition.
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The back of the dress
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Side view showing the sleeve
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Detail showing the mancheron
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Detail of the printed muslin flounces
Description
The muslin has a self-check in a more solid weave. The bodice, sleeves and basic skirt have a small pattern, ⅝" high, in fawn and dark brown; this is also on the skirt flounces, printed à disposition, and getting larger as it goes down to meet a band of lilac with pine motifs in the fawn and dark brown, 5⅜" high. The design was registered by Wakefield and Miller in April 1858, no.113394, so the dress was probably made a few months later.
The bodice is mounted on white cotton whose front opening has 14 hooks and worked eyelets; the printed muslin fronts sit loosely over the top, with a hook and worked bar at the neck and waist. The side seams are boned. The muslin fronts are gathered into the shoulder seams, and about 4½" above the pointed waist the fullness is controlled into 11 pleats, about ³⁄₁₆" wide, with three rows of stitching which has been clumsily repaired on the left front. The neck edge and armhole seams are piped.
The sleeves are very flared with a hem of about 1¾" on the ends. They have a mancheron which curves down to 4½" from the shoulder with two rows of 1¾" deep frills.
The skirt is cartridge pleated into a piped seam with the bodice, and has a 6" long opening from the waist at the centre front. The top flounce is 11" deep, but is shorter at the centre front under the bodice point which dips 2" below the waist; the top of the frill is progressively lower from the side to 2½" below the waist seam at the centre back. The middle frill is 11¾" deep and the lowest one is 12½" deep; the hem of the skirt is faced with a 2¾" wide strip of white cotton. A pocket in white cotton on the right side of the skirt is accessed by a 7" long slit in the skirt under the flounce, ¾" down from the waist.
Contemporary illustrations
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Fashion drawing from The Lady's Newspaper 1852
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Portrait Madame Edouard Valentin de la Tour by Jules-Georges Ferrand, 1858
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TheTwo Central Figures in "Derby Day" by William Powell Frith, 1860. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
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Deatil from a fashion plate in Le Bon Ton, June 1857
History
From Dr Philip Sykas
Wakefield and Miller was the London-based merchant firm affiliated with Inglis and Wakefield, the company which operated a printworks at Busby (now part of Glasgow). The leading partners were Joseph Colen Wakefield (1813-1896) and Alexander Miller (c1811-1893). Wakefield described his design principles and methods before the Select Committee on the Schools of Design in 1849. The printworks underwent a transition from block printing to machine printing in the mid-1850s, becoming famous for its machine-printed delaines and bareges.