Tags
day dress, dresses, Early Republic, fashion, fashion plates, Genessee Country Village Museum, Regency, Research, roller print cotton, style, Susan Greene Collection
Day dress of roller-printed cotton, 1810-1815. Susan Greene Collection, GCVM 90.25
Lately, I have developed an obsession with this roller-print day dress from the Greene Collection At Genessee Country Village Museum. I first encountered it on the 19th US Infantry’s website, a haven for those of us consumed with the early Federal everyday.
The 19th US site provides more photos and a drawing of the dress, so that if one were to become impossibly obsessed with the dress, one could recreate it. And if one were up late nights, one might consider how to create a copper-engraved roller for printing cotton.
Johann Klein dress, 1810
A more productive line of thought might be to consider this fashion plate, found during an early-morning Pinterest session. I think it gives us a sense of how rapidly fashion crossed the Atlantic (just as quick as engravings could be printed and bound into magazines, and boats could make the trip), and how avidly women copied the latest fashion.
That avidity would have been tempered by access to fabrics, but the resemblance between the dress at Genessee and the fashion illustration is striking, indeed.
Now, to find some fabric…
Because sewing life MUST copy the movies… I’ve turned curtain fabric into dresses, of course! And 10 years ago I think I had a similar obsession with the look of roller printed cotton, because I took cotton dress fabric from Cranston and laid it over a men’s broad shirting stripe to make the drapes in the bedroom. The effect is best when the sun is out and the blue stripes can be seen thru the calico print. Maybe you could do something similar? Not historically accurate, alas, but pretty? Keep us posted about your search!
What a great dress to obsess over. I, too, have looked longingly at this dress. I can not wait to see what you do.
It’s a beauty! Still looking for fabric. I can tell this will take a while. The dress itself is simple, but the fabric is more challenging. Lots to think about!
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