1883 Girl's brown dress

1883 Girl's brown dress
Date	1883
Category	Children
Item	Dress
Fabric	Wool
Decoration	Lace, buttons
Wearer	-
Maker	-
Acc. no.	HC.D-6.82-2

1883-1886 A dress in striped brown wool for a girl from 8 to 11 years old.

The dress from the side
The back of the dress
Detail of the front showing three replacement buttons below one of the original ones.
Detail inside the centre back showing the checked lining and the machine lace round the neck; the selvedge of the fabric can be seen on the lower edge of the collar.
Detail of the back waist where the back panels widen into the puff.
Detail of the fabric

Description

The light brown wool fabric is woven in a steep twill and has groups of three dark brown very narrow warp stripes.

The wool is mounted on ivory cotton twill with black checked stripes and this goes down to hip level; below that the skirt is lined with light brown speckled wool twill.

There were 11 buttons with worked buttonholes to fasten the front opening but three buttons are replacements and one is missing; the ¾" high self collar has a hook and worked loop at the centre front. A frill of machine lace edging, 1⅛" wide, is sewn inside the top of the collar.

The front panels have two wide pleats into the shoulder seams and the fullness at the waist is pulled into 1½" wide section by four rows of gathering stitches about ½" apart. The inside edges of the pleats have dark brown piping matching the thread of the buttonholes. The sleeves have bias cut bands, 2" wide, as cuffs, ½" above the sleeve ends, with black piping on each edge.

A band of the fabric goes round the hips, with a horizontal fold about 2" down at the centre front, 2½" at the left side and 3" on the right. The lower edge is cut into tabs about 3" down from the fold and 2½" at the centre front; these are 3¼" deep and 2½" wide at their ends, and the edges have dark brown piping. At the right-hand side, the top of the band has a pocket opening 4¾" long. Under the tabs there are 1" wide pleats all round, with a dark brown cotton tape, ¾" wide, inside 4" up from the hem to hold them in place, and under them is a straight skirt.

The two centre back bodice panels extend down becoming box pleats,1¾" wide, about 3" below the waist; they expand to about 19" wide altogether, becoming a large puff which has three sets of two pleats each side spaced down and sewn into the side seams, over an 8" wide section of the mounting cotton. Half way down the puff is stitched to the mounting with pleats, and then it is all gathered in and stitched down just above the skirt peats, from where it hangs as a 6" long frill.

The dress show signs of much wear.