Dress
Place of origin:
Great Britain, UK (made)
Date:
ca. 1862 (made)
Artist/Maker:
unknown (production)
Materials and Techniques:
Corded silk trimmed with machine embroidered, lined with glazed cotton, faced with tarleton, reinforced with boning, hand-sewn
Credit Line:
Given by Dr N. Goodman
Museum number:
T.22-1973
Gallery location:
In Storage
This dress is machine-embroidered, but hand sewn. The first machine for embroidery was invented in France. Examples were first brought to Britain in the 1820s. Machine embroidery developed for men’s waistcoats and women’s dresses throughout the 1840s and 1850s. Various inventions of machines for sewing seams occurred in the 1840s, but they did not become commercially available until the late 1850s. It was several decades before the sewing machine was widely used in homes and by professional dressmakers.
Victoria & Albert Museum