help dating jacket

P

persephone60

Registered Guest
I am relatively new to collecting vintage clothing, and am still learning how to date items. Here is the first item I need help with:

Short sleeve jacket with embroidery. Outer material is a black velvet (not sure what type). Has a lining that feels synthetic. No internal tags.

I have no idea where to even start with dating this jacket. Thanks!
 
My initial impression is Persian, the lining may be an acetate which has a stiffness to it. It appears to be an older piece perhaps dating to the 30s or 40s.

These ethnic garments are always a bit more of a mystery, it's a pretty piece!

It looks dark blue on my screen and has metallic thread embroidery. The metallic thread could be silver and copper.
 
i LOVE that kind of ethnic work/look!

that same kind of work can be Thai or Indonesian, as well. i agree w/MJ, these can be a bit of a mystery when it comes to dating (and origin)... in the early 1990s we saw similar jackets sold in the bazaars of Jakarta, and they had recently been made; also, the tailor who made the tuxedos for my ex made and sold jackets and hats in that same style ~ some were for costuming and shows there. He also carried "patches" of that type of embroidery work to add to jackets and hats, too.
 
It's actually a black velvet (sorry my phone pics aren't great), and the embroidery is gold-colored, and the lining is pretty smooth.

It sounds like this jacket could be from a number of places/eras. Is there any way of telling whether this is actually vintage or something produced more recently? (The main reason I was thinking vintage was because the stitching doesn't look like it was done on a modern machine, but if it's an ethnic piece, it could be more recent but not have been done on a machine...)
 
I have no idea how to tell how old this could be, just wanted to add that velvet garments with heavy metallic embroidery can be from Central Asia as well. Saw a lot of those in Uzbekistan, though there the embroidery was gold or silver only, as I remember, no additional colors. There it's traditionally the men who do this kind of embroidery. I watched them doing it at a shop, and it's actually quite hard work - hard on your fingers especially.

Karin
 
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