Any information about Herald fashion, likely age and cleaning advice!

Dear All

I’ve come across a lovely strapless evening dress and would love any ideas / insights about the label (Herald Fashion) and likely age/era. It’s been shortened at some point by about 5 inches, so it would have been floor length and has an internal net and hoop arrangement.

As you can see it’s a beautiful dress, but (and it’s quite a big but!) it’s fairly heavily stained (I’ve included a photo of the biggest) so I need to do some very careful cleaning. Any advice about the safest / most effective way to do this would be much appreciated.

I’m uncertain as to the composition - but it’s labelled as dry clean only and looks to me like shot silk. It’s lined in a lovely purple / grey fabric which I’m guessing is polyester or some such thing.

Apologies for the quality of the photos - I’m at my partners but just couldn’t wait to get all your thoughts!

with to able, Impey

 

I'd lean towards 1950s. I have seen a couple of these on etsy and both were 50s (and floor length) but maybe someone more expert can chime in. It's very common to find them with stains, I couldn't actually see the staining from the pictures provided but agree any cleaning would have to be extremely gentle. There is a great thread on the public forums on how to take care of vintage items and you should find the information you want on cleaning in there . It is a beautiful dress!

 

Thanks so much for this! Realised I’d forgotten to add the stain photo ... see below!

impey