Need Help Describing Jacket

onceoza

onceoza

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If some of you follow the vintage board on ebay, then you'll know that I was able to acquire some very old items (victorian and edwardian) at an auction house that was commissioned to sell off the overflow of a museum in Illinois.

Most of the items had a label in it with the museum's inventory number and their date. I have this jacket that the museum dated as French, 1830's. Everyone I've shown it to seems to think that it is much later. What do you all think and a help describing it would be appreciated!







 
Black is very hard to photograph - are you able to display it on a mannequin so we can see the shape, also can you please photograph the seaming inside. More questions - does it have any clasps or boning? What materials is it made of (it looks like silk).

thank you,
Nicole
 
Hi,

It is hard to tell the age and the construction, materials, etc from the photos.

It appears to be made of a type of tape lace or soutache lace, (not a true lace but it is referred to as that sometimes) and looks to be circa very early 1900's to me.

It is beautiful from what I can see.

B
 
It's beautiful! And way out of my comfort zone, era wise, but I agree it's much later. I agree with Barbara that it looks ca. 1900, but I really can't make any sort of educated guess.
 
Here are a few more pictures. You are right about black being hard to photograph. I took three times the pictures and only was able to use a few.

The jacket has no closures. It is lined, but the lining is shredding, particularly at the shoulder area.











One more dress to show you....

How can I tell if the filet lace was man or machine made?





 
On the filet lace, examine the embroidery. If you think the embroidery is machine made, the lace is probably also machine made. On the embroidery, look at the wrong side, are there thread ends? If so, are they in the same position on similar motifs?

Look at the lace with a magnifier to see if it is "perfect" or if there is any unevenness in the threads. Machine made lace has been around since the early 19th cent. so there's a lot of it.

Also, if the lace is handsewn to the dress, it's more likely to be handmade.

One last item--the dress should be a separate item so more people will look at it.

Is there a country of origin? Where it's made sometimes helps. If labor is cheap, it may be handmade.
 
I have no idea where the lace dress was made. I thought it was just so pretty. I'm guessing that it was U.S. made; probably 1920's?
 
your items are lovely, onceoza.

if/when you decide to list/sell your second dress, could you please email me with a link? my business email is

[email protected]

Thanks in advance. :)
 
Thanks for the extra pics - I have one more question. Can you tell if the jacket is hand sewn? Look at both sides of the stitches, hand sewn may have some unevenness in the size of stitches. Also, the underside will be different, it will not look the same as the top. A garment from 1830 will be entirely hand sewn, whilst a post 1850s garment may be either machine or hand sewn.

The silk lining looks like it's shattering: quite common in older silks. From the construction, I don't think it's as old as the 1830s but I can't date it yet on the information.

Nicole

PS, re: the dress, I think it's probably machine lace and agree with '20s.
 
Hi,

Thanks for the extra pix, especially the close up which shows it is soutache "tape". Soutache jackets like this one were popular in the very early 1900s, and throughout the Edwardian Era. I have owned several, and all of the ones I have owned had similar loose wide, shorter sleeves as they were worn over a blouse/waist/dress. Picture it with another garment underneath, that garment having long sleeves that are more narrow at the top, and voluminous at the bottom. This would also be about the time when the "S" silhouette or pouter pidgeon look was popular. That would also explain the lightness of the jacket, and it would not have had any boning or heavy construction. This one looks a bit less "constructed" on the lining than the ones I have owned.

On the 1920's embroidered and lace dress, I would think the lace is machine made. Filet lace of that particular type was not usually hand made after the late 19th century, though as Claire pointed out it is could have still been made in a country where labor was dirt cheap.

Not that machine made lace is bad, as many of them are, to the naked eye, of equal beauty to hand made laces and the dress is stunning.

B
 
Thank you all for your help. You guys are the best! I am really getting into this vintage stuff. If I were a size 4, I would dress vintage all the time. I especially love the 50's with the huge crinolines.

My redhat lady girlfriends and I like to costume every one in a while. We had our "second cousins of Scarlett O'Hara" costumes, and then we made our Carmen Miranda outfits complete with the big fruit hats. When they had the 100th anniversary of the St. Louis Worlds Fair, we made our 1904 dresses and went to Forest Park where the fair was and strolled. Here's a pic all dressed for the fair! I'm in the middle.





We also had our poodle skirts worn with big crinoline slips. When I put that outfit on, it immediately flashed me back to when I was a little girl. It was the feel of the slip scratching my legs and the noise it made when I walked.
 
Can't say much on your jacket or your pretty dress - but, wow, great picture of you and your friend! What a neat idea with the costumes! My mother's school friend lives in a place that has a "Belle Epoque-Week" each winter, for which she makes period-style costumes for herself every year. I just love the idea of things like this!

Karin
 
Holy Mackerel! You midwestern red hat ladies put our northern Vermont red hatters to shame! That's a fun photo. And speaking of photos - we would love to see some of your other museum purchases. (Even if they have gone to new homes).
 
Unfortunately, I deleted most of the pictures of the sold dresses. Here are a few pictures that I still have.









 
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