Dress #059: Victorian dress in blue and cream
This hand-stitched Victorian paper gown is based on an American mourning dress from 1872-1874. Though the original dress is black, it always looked blue to me in the photographs, so that is the colour I’ve chosen here. The body of the dress is made from a Japanese paper embedded with strands of shiny rayon fibres, while the trim is an Italian paper. The fringes are simulated with Mizutama watermark tissue; glass beads stand in for the buttons on the bodice. Hand-embroidered lines imitate the seams and folds of the dress. It is It is stitched onto cold-pressed 100% cotton paper. The original dress is held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art (accession 2009.300.673).
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 papers, Italian papers, glass beads, and cotton floss on cotton paper