Dress #073: 1920s evening dress in coral brocade. 2018

This hand-stitched coral dress is based on an American dress by the Bergdorf Goodman Department Store, from ca. 1929, just when Phryne Fisher was making a splash in St. Kilda’s, Melbourne. To imitate the cold and coral brocade of the original, I layered Japanese Mizutama watermark tissue over a fern-patterned chiyogami paper. It is stitched onto cold-pressed 100% cotton paper. After a great deal of thought about how to best portray the way the underskirt was visible below and from behind the split front panel, while still being in front of the train at the back of the dress, I ended up inserting it into slits cut in the dress. The original dress is held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art (accession 2009.300.304).

The dress is six inches tall, stitched by hand on 8x10 inch 100% cotton watercolour paper, which means that it will pop right into any commercial frame in that size, and be ready to hang on your wall.

Materials: Japanese chiyogami paper, Japanese tissue and cotton floss on cotton paper