Can anyone help with the fabric of this dress, please?

chanellabelle

chanellabelle

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This is a sixties dress from my mom which she wore during her second holy commune (is that the English word for this Roman Catholic ritual?) when she was 15/16 years old. At least that's how old she looks in the picture. She's on vacation so I can't ask her how old she actually was; I'll give her a call this evening.
She said she doesn't know what type of fabric it is, it was custom made for her. Does anyone have an idea? Thanks!
 
Hi Diana,

Thanks for replying! The fabric is very light weight but I think the lining of the dress pulls the hem down.
When you stroke it, it kinda feels like Crepe Georgette...
I'll see if I can post a close up of the fabric...
 
This is a close up from the back of the dress:
DSC05785.jpg
 
seersucker! :-) perhaps them hem has been folded under more than once which is why is is heavier? or does it have a thick ribbon in it? (that strip over the inside of the hem does anyone know what it is called? finishing ribbon?)

Anywho, I notice the sleeves hem is much lighter than the shirt bottom.
 
It does look like seersucker, but I'm not sure if it has to be cotton in order to be called seersucker.

"Seersucker: Thin, light-weight washable fabric in plain weave, with crinkled alternate stripes made by making part of the warp very slack. Used for dresses, children's rompers, underwear, men's summer suits." (A Dictionary of Costume and Fashion Historic & Modern, Mary brooks Picken)

This definition doesn't say cotton is the only material, so I guess not.

Diana
 
This doesn't look like a cotton to me; you would be probably be able to see the weave in the fabric in the close up if it were. Given the era, I'm guessing it is a synthetic, probably a woven polyester, esp. that it has a "crepey" feel. Only other thing I can think it would be is nylon, but by the mid to late 60s, I don't think woven nylon was being used much anymore as dress fabric.
 
Looks a bit casual for a First Communion dress. Girls tended to be dressed up like princesses or mini brides, up until recently. Even mine in the 80s saw lots of satin and lace and froth.
 
From your information I think this may be a Confirmation Dress and not First Holy Communion - age and description of Second Holy Communion would fit. Holy Communion is taken when you are about 9-10 if I recall. Seeing the picture would be great.

It is interesting that the dress is so short - I know of which I speak - because even at Confirmation those dresses were usually fairly modest with some nod to current fashion style but to have it that short like a mini might have raised a few eyebrows in the RC Church. Well, it would have in the UK! It may have been shortened.

Looks like crepe georgette to me.
 
My thought was that it had indeed been shortened for "street wear" after the religious event. That might account for the heaviness in the hem--if it were turned up without being trimmed off first.

I was also thinking that a "second Holy Communion" would be what we would call "Confirmation." Though I was confirmed when I was 12 or 13, perhaps it is done a bit later in the UK?
 
Take it from a recovering Catholic... :o

First Communion is in 2nd grade, so 7 or 8 years old.

Confirmation is at 12 or 13 as stated by vintagebaubles. The Catholic Churches all keep the same dates, whether USA , UK, or wherever.

I was also leaning toward nylon, however, polyester started showing up in the late 60's, too... Maybe it's a blend?
 
Hi ladies!

Thanks so much for your input! I don't live in the UK, I live in the Netherlands but was born in South America, where it's warm all year long.
We moved to the Netherlands when I was 11 years old. I never did the 1sth communion and confirmation, so I know very little about the details.

I saw the picture of this event, it's in my mom's photo album of course but I can't post it now since she's on vacation.
The dress was actually this short in the picture and she was wearing a small tiara like headband and had an ivory leather clutch in her hand and matching shoes to go with it. Even though my mom is very petite (she's 5.1) , her dress was the shortest of all the dresses the picture! It was decorated with huge and tiny rhinestones all over the front, but sadly these were so horribly discolored that I decided to remove them. I'd like to try to replace them with new ones.

I've looked at lots of pictures of seersucker fabric, but somehow I don't think this is it...

I always loved this dress as a child; it made me feel like a little princess when I put it on and stood in front of the mirror :)
She promised me this dress when I was 7 years old and now it's finally MINE! :singing:
 
I wonder if it's puckered nylon - or at least that's what I call it - it looks like seersucker, but is a textured nylon that I've seen used in the '60s. Here's an image of a late '60s mens shirt.

Puckerednylon.jpg



This photo was included in my book on vintage and is courtesy Victoria Bennett.

Nicole
 
Hi everyone,

Just got off the phone with my mom and it seems I have mixed up the events! She was 18 at the time and and I don't know how else to translate it but call the event "a confession" :rolleyes:
Her excuse for the lack of length: "The mini was in vogue".

The pattern on your shirt looks more like it, Nicole. Is it slightly transparent?
I think I'll have to see if I can do a burn test (this would be my first one, so wish me luck)
Thanks again, everyone!
 
It's fairly common to mix-up the terms we use for the fiber (what it's made from) and for the weave/knit (how it's made) of fabric, especially when one form of the fabric is so prevalent that we all start to use a kind of short-hand to refer to it.

For instance, "seersucker" is so commonly made from cotton fiber, that most of us tend to think of it as always cotton, and it's certainly the traditional fiber to use. But it's the name of a weave, and Diana gives a nice description of the weaving technique.

So I think seersucker could be made from almost any fiber, natural or synthetic - including nylon or polyester.

Regardless, seersucker and other puckered weaves like it are some of my favorites for clothes - no ironing! Yay! :)

Jen
 
This weave or treatment is also called plisse ( shoud be an accent on the e) and I think this term is used more often than seersucker when the fiber is nylon or polyester.

I would still look at the hem and see if it has been turned under again, it does look a bit heavy and thick.

It's great that she remembers when she wore it - you can't get better dating than that!

Hollis
 
Yes, the nylon (plisse - nice term!) is slightly sheer. I agree with Hollis though, that the hem does look a bit heavy for nylon.

Good luck with the burn test - nylon will burn very differently to cotton.

Nicole
 
That's a good link, joules - thank you for sharing it! I'm a bit of a fabric geek-in-training, so I love this sort of thing.

But looking at the information and examples in that thread, it seems to me that they are saying the difference in plisse and seersucker is not that plisse tends to be synthetic like nylon and seersucker is made from cotton, but that the processes that make the puckers are different between the two.

The definition for plisse in the link says it's made by a chemical process that results in all-over small puckers, while seersucker is made by changing the tension in the weaving that results in stripes of puckers alternating with plain woven fabric.

Maybe I'm missing something - but don't both the fabrics posted by Nicole and Chanellabelle look like they have stripes of puckers? Wouldn't that make them seersucker?

Jen
 
They (plisse' and seersucker), can both display the striped patterns, I believe, Jen.
"Plissé
A lightweight, plain-weave fabric, often silk or cotton, that has a characteristic puckered striped effect created through the application of chemicals. Its end uses include pajamas and childrenswear. See also seersucker."

I always go round and round with these two. I usually think of seersucker as the classic blue and white cotton variety, but that's me. I have an old plisse' housecoat; I'll take some pictures.

I'm with Anne, in that this appears to be a woven polyester, or perhaps a blend?

Okay, here's that housedress textile:
4276918681_5524154363.jpg
 
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