Dating a dress, my guess 1915

[Alexandra Karm]

Dear all,
Could you please help me dating a dress I recently bought, and perhaps identifying its original purpose (day, night etc.).
It is a black (silk?) dress with a shiny thread woven into the material and a sort of 3D pattern it it. The front plank has a victorian style, and closes in front by matter hooks and metal snaps. The front, stand collar and sleeves are embellished. The stand collar is standing by means of the thin wires sewn into it.
The dress falls under my knee but I am not sure it has not been shortened. Has shoulder pads.
Thanks in advance!

 

[Rue_de_la_Paix]

Hi,

Thanks for sharing your dress with us. It is near impossible to determine the lines and style of the dress as you show it sideways, which distorts the shape a great deal. Can you take a photo that shows the dress correctly? We need to see where the waist seam sits in relation to the shoulders, and the true length and width of the skirt.

What looks a bit odd is from what I can tell, the dress appears to be possibly WWI era/'Teens era. Yet it has that high yoke collar, which was really out of style for the time period. Possibly the collar and bodice insert were added to the dress as some sort of alteration.

Can you show us the shoulder pads? Dresses like the one you show from that time would usually not have pads in the shoulders in the traditional sense, so those may be added also.

The skirt looks to have pleats, is that the case? Also, it looks like there is a fairly wide seam down the center back which looks a bit off for dress of that time also. Is that also a possible alteration?

Can you tell us, how does the dress close? Are there snaps, buttons, or hooks and eyes, etc? Does it close in front, back or side?

The fact that the skirt falls just right below the knee probably means it has been shortened, unless the woman it was made for was quite short in height.

The placement of the waist seam will be a very good clue, so please show us a photo that is not sideways.

 

[Alexandra Karm]

Hi Barbara,

thank you for your reaction and I apologise for the quality of the pictures.
To address your questions:
I attach pictures of the total proportion and the closure. As you hopefully can see, the dress closes in front by mean of the hooks (closes the lining) and snaps closes the front part of dress. When I put it it goes as follows:
1. I close the lining by means of the hook and eyes.
2. I snap the bodice onto the lining by means of the metal snaps. The closure goes all the way up to the stand collar, so the last snap is located on the upper part of the collar, in the middle of the back.
3. I snap the left side of the dress onto the bodice, so on the lace.
This way the dress is completely closed. Additionally, there is a set of hooks and snaps on the dress. The dress also has one pocket.

The shoulder pad picture is attached, is made of the same material as the dress lining, and has a wool like material inside (so no synthetic material).

The skirt indeed has rather wide pleats, about 1.5 inch wide. The front has only side pleats, with the front center section being non-pleated, back is completely pleated.

I find it hard to say whether it has been altered (as it seems a lot of altering would be needed) but the silver lining material has clear marks from the removed label. Not sure whether it means anything.

I hope this clarifies it a bit! Looking forward to your reaction!
ps i apologise if I do not use all the terms entirely correctly

 

[Rue_de_la_Paix]

Thank you for all of the photos. I am going to wait until others chime in with their views. For now, I can say that I think it has been altered quite a bit. It has been shortened, as you say. The yoke does not look original to the dress. the dress seems a mix, and has elements of early Edwardian, WWI era, and the lining and shoulder pads look 1930s or later. So I a bit stumped on what it is you have there. Perhaps something altered for the theatre or a costume. The pleating on the skirt seems odd also, being only in the back.

Interesting, at the least!

 

[Jonathan]

It looks to me like an Edwardian dress that was relined and updated with shoulder pads in the 80s - the lining looks like an acetate or even a polyester, and you are right Barbara, there is something about the pleating in the back that doesn't make sense.

 

[Alexandra Karm]

Hi Barbara, Jonathan,
Thanks for your reactions, very interesti g! As my last remark, wouldn't be the shoulder pads be synthetic if they were from the 80s (or that spongy material)? They are wool inside and are made they way I only saw ony grandmothers dresses As for the lining, pretty sure it a mix with a natural fiber but maybe not for 100%.
Repurposing for a theater costume also have crossed my mind although it is done very very thoroughly, a rather oldschool way of sewing (in my unprofessional opinion), wonder why all the effort.. Intriguing, I guess we ll never know thanks again for your reactions!

 

[Circa Vintage Clothing]

This is an odd dress and - I hope you don't me saying this but the photos are not helping, the light is bad and they're out of focus. Black is always a challenge to depict accurately.

I suspect you have a theatre costume made in the '40s, perhaps repurposed from something older (the collar wires really do look older) but there are elements that are throwing me off, like all the zig zag stitching which looks more like a post '60s home sewer. Theatre costumes often have hook and eye openings as they're more reliable than zippers, which can break at the worst moment.

What will help is if you can accurate discern the fabric composition - eg, the cream frill looks like a nylon, if that's the case, it can't be pre WW2 but it could be an add on. There do seem to be some alterations. I'd also sneak a peak into the shoulder pads and see what they contain. Can you tell if the shoulder line is a natural one or has been made to accommodate the shoulder pads? Although I've seen shoulder pads in earlier garments, they're very rare and there are other signs that point to a '40s date like the fabric, which looks like a rayon jacquard. Burn test will help.

 

[Jonathan]

It could also have been a wartime remake, but I would have expected the boidce to be remade more than it was - the high collar in conjunction with the short hem is odd.