An Early 1890s Day Dress

Sometimes we spot an interesting dress and just like to call attention to it. 🙂 Often, there’s not a lot of information on these so in some cases we are admittedly speculating but that’s half the fun. 🙂


Recently we came across this interesting circa 1893 day dress made by a one Mme Duboys of Paris that’s held by the Fashion Museum Bath.

Day Dress, c. 1893; Fashion Museum Bath

This dress is constructed from a black striped pink silk satin and trimmed with black lace on the lower sleeves and collar. Silhouette-wise, this is definitely leans towards the early 1890s- the sleeve style is full but hasn’t developed into the full-on gigot sleeve style that was to come long a couple of years later. This dresses effectively uses the black stripes to accentuate the dress’s silhouette and especially showing off the skirt’s bias cut on the rear panels. On the sleeves, the stripes are built up into strips of black velvet (at least that’s what it appears to be with the resolution of the photos), giving an effect reminiscent of Renaissance dress bodices.

As can been seen from the picture below, the stripes are arranged into chevrons that lead the eye upwards; it’s a classic fashion design standard. 🙂

Unfortunately, there’s not a lot of information about this dress online (hopefully one day we’ll be able to return to the Fashion Museum Bath in person and take a closer look at this dress) but to us, it’s an aesthetically pleasing dress of the period from a lesser couturier, which doesn’t make it any less compelling than dresses from Worth, Doucet, or Pingat. 🙂



Leave a Reply