I’ve pulled out my pictures again from the display of wedding dresses I helped set up for the Canadian Costume Museum. This weeks feature dress is from 1850. One would expect a dress from the 1850s to start having the bell shape but there wasn’t enough material in this dress for that. Since it was made at the very start of the 50s, it may be what is called a transition dress.
I really like the lace and buttons at the front. I’m going to have to try that on one of my dresses.

The mannequin was a bit to wide and we couldn’t button her all up but the buttons lined up perfectly when done up.
The sleeve had a little poof at the shoulder.back view.
I wish I had more petticoats available. There wasn’t enough skirt for hoops so the dress needed to be filled out with petticoats, which I did not have enough of. Also, with no legs to hold out the petticoats I did have, skirt ended up looking more like a bustle dress than a bell. Oh well, most people only looked at it from the front.
I think that this dress was made by a pretty good home seamstress. I think that because….
From far away, it looks pretty good!
I hope to be back tomorrow but we are having some internet issues. Our router crashed and the oldest boy bought a new one. He got the two computers that are directly wired to the internet going but the two that are wireless are still just big typewriters. That means the competition for internet access has just gone up. If I’m late or non existent please forgive me. I hope that eldest boy and his computer savvy pals will get me back on-line ASAP.