Neiman Marcus Chinese Wedding Skirt Stunning Embroidery

[Lily K.Chadwick]

Hi, I was just wondering if anyone could give me some help in dating the following skirt?
It appears to be an adaptation of a traditional chinese wedding skirt for the western market. It's made in a vivid red silk brocade material and is heavily and beautifully hand embroidered in silk thread. I believe it to have been adapted at the waist(at the time of import/ manufacture?), having added on a whole new waistband with hook closures, as well as possibly having sewn up the sides.
Additionally, it has the Neiman Marcus label which appears to have been used from the 1950's into the 1970's?

Thanks ever so much, this skirt has me pretty stumped!

 

[Jonathan]

THat's the weirdest thing I have seen. It's a real Chinese wedding skirt, but the waistband is incorrect. It looks like a Western style waistband with hook and eye closure was added, but why it has a Neiman Marcus label in it makes no sense to me. Did Neiman Marcus have an antique store within it one point?

 

[poppysvintageclothing]

Jonathan, that is what I thought as well and wondered if they had someone doing an "antique section" in their stores. I know that a number of the large department stores in Montreal did that in the 80s and even 90s. Holt Renfrew had one set up by a vintage dealer for a short time, I believe in the early 2000s. And I can remember that happening in some of the other department stores. Even the Le Chateau chain did that way back for a period of time, they had a number of racks set up on their 2nd floor of their main St. Catherine St. for quite some time. I actually bought some vintage their at that time.

 

[Jonathan]

THat's what I was thinking too, but I didn't think anyone was doing that in the 70s or before, when this Neiman Marcus label dates from. I know Simpsons in Toronto, and I believe it was Frederick and Nelson in Seattle both had antique stores in them in the 70s, but I only remember furniture in them and things like 19th century French copper pots and Tiffany-style stained glass lamps - no clothes.

I thought Holt Renfrew only opened their vintage clothing section in the late 90s or early 2000's, but I don't know about Montreal, I just remember when the one in Toronto opened because Linda Lattner supplied the clothes and Carole Tanenbaum supplied the jewellery. They also may have had one earlier and dropped it and then reopened the one I remember.

 

[Lily K.Chadwick]

Thanks ever so much for your replies!

Perhaps another thing to add to the mix(confuse things), is that a university teacher of mine, who specializes in oriental textiles, thought that upon seeing the pictures, the skirt appeared to be quite recent(though she didn't say how recent). If this is so, then the skirt may well not have come from an antiques department?

Thanks again