Lace, beading, windowpane silk dress in Lavender with faux button front and coat sleeves

ANTIQUE CIVIL WAR ERA DAY DRESS c.1860 VICTORIAN VINTAGE


From the Seller

This listing is for an original lady's silk day dress from the Civil War period. It's made of mauve taffeta with a white windowpane check. The dress features a darted bodice with coat-shaped sleeves. The sleeves are trimmed with Chantilly lace and beads. The bodice is lined with brown cotton similar to the skirt facing. It fastens with hooks/eyes and has several ornamental buttons. The skirt has a pocket and facing, but is un-lined. It closes at left front. There is evidence that the sleeve trim is a period update as the sleeves were narrowed at the same time. This could be reversed if desired, but the trim is quite charming and it IS 1860s. The dress displays beautifully and is a fantastic example of early Civil War fashion! The collar and pin are not included.


 Condition: Small holes scattered throughout with some areas of damage near the hem. There is discoloration throughout. Note- 2 of the darts were let ou and have been resewn with modern boning to replace the missing originals. It is invisible, but can be replaced if desired.

 Measurements are: 36B by 25W and front length- 40 inches

From The Industrious Lady
Nice silk windowpane dress. Interesting to note that there are bias binding around the bottom of the skirt in a color very dark against the lavender. The sleeves are modified coat sleeves with a tuck placed to narrow the sleeves down towards the wrist, which the original maker tried to kinda make more subtle by putting the lace on top. Strangely enough, the skirt looks to be gathered into the waistband, but without looking closer its hard to tell, could be tiny pleats. Interesting dress with the uniqueness of the point being in the back, often see points both front and back or the bodice or just the front. I'd put this dress as 1863, when there was a mini trend of tails and emphasis on the back waist to the bodice.

Outdoor dress, 1863 - Fashion Plate Collection - University of ...\
1863 fashion plate showing a dress with a back tail
Here's How Women Wore Their Hair in the 1860s

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Sissi Wedding dress

Image
 2021 was rough for the industrious Lady Blog and my dear followers you deserve an apology. In the spirit of being a poor adult who also has a certain addiction to silk, I spent the last year without active internet service or a working computer. Any posts that were made were done using the computer at the local library. As one can imagine, that made blogging and writing about projects pretty rough. And boy is there a lot to write about. The only thing that got me through was petting the pretty silks and chocolate, lots and lots of chocolate.  2021 might have been rough for writing but a huge new event happened that my dear readers don't know about yet, I got married. And of course in the spirit of industry and fun, I made my wedding dress. As I sat as a now engaged human, a choice had to be made, the choice of what kind of fun dress to make. And it had to be the perfect dress... the ultimate dress... and then it hit me. What dress in all of 19th century history is most close to pe
Read more

Bodice with Bretelles

Image
This lovely Satin Material is the Park Square in Adobe from the Allen Park collection, sadly no longer available. Good thing I had seven yards of it, enough for a dress for me and vest for the hubby. The bodice had to be cut twice, the first time the lines were offset, oops.  Ah the bretelles. 19th century ladies liked their french fou fou names. Any ordinary style instantly becomes 10x fancier with a french name attached.  Few, the bodice fit. Which was great since I like to live dangerously and skip the mock-up step.  Alright Bretelles, I see you there. LOOKING ALL FINE.... buttt it didn't match quite right, time to recut.  That's better on matching. The bretelles and hook and eyes were completely handsewn in. Poor middle finger had worn through, snd the unfortunate old curse from the sewing shop returned. If I wear my middle finger skin through too much, and needles are dull, the back of the needle will start going into my finger instead of the material. This is why thimbles
Read more
Image
Halloween Sew-Along Part 2 For this project, I chose the night and day dress. I had seen it years ago while researching what fancy dress ball gowns looked like. Unfortunately, the origin of this lovely dress is a mystery. It is all over pinterest, yet  following link after link only leads to a twitter account that is no longer active or a picture on tumblr.  http://www.rmgandco.com/cms/?option=com_k2&view=item&id= 204:nightday-dress-by-cf-worth-1858&Itemid=244  was another link attributed to this dress, but the link must be broken or non-functioning. The url says it was a night/day dress by CF Worth in 1858. If the date is correct, this dress would have been during the first year of House of Worth being started. Wherever this dress came from, it absolutely stunning, and would turn any lady into the belle of the ball. To recreate this dress, I had to break down the many different part of it. From the top layer to  the bottom.   The dress is divided into two sides,
Read more