TRAINA BOUTIQUE - I need help with the history on this long dress

[Joanna B]

I recently bought this dress and then did a little research on Teal Traina. If I'm not mistaken, he taught or worked with Geoffrey Beene. The article read that Teal Traina had a 7th Avenue boutique, "Traina Boutique", which was a shop he opened right after graduating from fashion design school at about the age of 24? The article made me believe the "Traina Boutique" clothing was only made during that time, but that was very long ago considering his passing in 2002 at the age of 85. This dress looks much like a 60's or early 70's dress, but that wouldn't coincide with the timeline of his work. I took a picture of the garment labels at the bottom of the dress. It looks like it was never worn. Wouldn't the one paper label showing Item and Model # be gone? It's a paper label, not fabric or plastic. It's a very long dress looking like a size 4 or 6? It's flawless. The top feels like silk and the rest nylon/polyester...but I have no idea as I only love fashion, but am not educated in vintage clothing whatsoever. Let me know your thoughts please. I'd love to hear them! Thank you for any information of referrals.

 

[Linn]

Joanna,

Welcome to the Forums. You have found a great early '70's maxi dress! The VFG maintains a very comprehensive Label Resource. You can access it from the Home Page of our website. 1974 is printed on the third tag you show so it's most likely that the dress is from that year.

The ILGWU label (the first one that is folded under) was used from 1974-1995.

http://vintagefashionguild.org/label-resource/ilgwu/
Teal Traina closed in 1978.

http://vintagefashionguild.org/label-resource/traina-teal/

Nice find!
Linn