Dress #074: Edwardian dress in ivory and black. 2016
This hand-stitched Edwardian paper dress is based on an English evening gown by Lucile from 1913. With dresses like this, Lucile (aka Lady Duff Gordon) says that she 'loosed upon a startled London draped skirts that opened to reveal the legs'. The dress was worn by Miss Heather Firbank of Mayfair, London; the Victoria and Albert Museum holds over a hundred pieces from Miss Firbank’s wardrobe. Miss Firbank would have been a contemporary of Downton Abbey’s Lady Mary Crawley, and I can picture Lady Mary wearing a dress just like this one!
Pearly cream Japanese paper stands in for satin, with the rich black of Nepalese paper imitating velvet; it is stitched onto cold-pressed 100% cotton paper. The original dress is held by the Victoria & Albert Museum (accession T.31-1960).
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 paper, Nepalese paper, and cotton floss on cotton paper