We at Lily Absinthe would like to wish everyone a happy Boxing Day and commemorate the day, we found this interesting 1887 dress in holiday colors:
Day Dress, 1887; McCord Museum (M2009.62.1.1-2)
The dress is constructed from cream and garnet wool and has the characteristic late 1880s silhouette. What is especially striking about this dress are the alternating garnet and cream horizontal stripes on the under bodice and the garnet pouffs on each shoulder. This is a fairly simple design yet both colors are shown off nicely and the horizontal stripes is a unique feature that doesn’t show up too often of dresses of the 1880s. Just a bit of holiday cheer from us to you. 🙂
Thank you for posting this lovely dress. I just adore it!
I love red and white as a combination and it would look lovely paired with green, black, or blue accessories. (I’m not sure if black would be allowed, due to mourning conventions, but still … if this were my dress, black would be my first pick, regardless of season or custom!)
An interesting detail: you can see the extra/excess red material at the shoulder poufs showing from underneath the cream wool of the sleeve. The top edges of the sleeve don’t seem to be sewn to the red poufs at all. Instead, it looks as if the sleeves are open at the top and the tails of the poufs are merely tucked into the opening.
Of course, the pouf where it meets the armscye looks as if it’s sewn/set in, as does the narrow strip of cream sleeve at the center top of the armscye.
Is there any way to verfiy if the sleeve is open at the top with the poufs tucked in loose? Or is the red material tacked in place and the loose ends sewn to the interior of the sleeve with stitches that don’t show on the outside?
Thank you again for posting this lovely dress.
Unfortunately, short of examining the dress in person or some close-up pictures being available, there’s no way to be sure. I would imagine that they were somehow sewn shut, anything else just doesn’t make much sense. Nevertheless, it’s an interesting question.
Is it me, or does this dress have a faintly French militaristic look to it? All it needs is a red, white, and blue rosette or cockade to complete the look. 😉