Description:
Woman's light-colored barege (wool and silk) two-piece dress with a basque bodice with a bow on the back and full skirt trimmed with a green fringe, which may have belonged to Lydia Miles Dwinell (1820-1914) of Madbury, NH and Glover, VT, or one of her daughters, Ellen (b.1838) or Addie. The 19th century was obsessed with novelty, and nowhere was this more evident than in the variety of textiles made available to a wide range of the population. Barege, as a type of textile, won a special award in a competition at the Crystal Palace Exposition of 1851. Consisting of a silk warp and two-colored wool weft (often made from natural white and black wool), it combined the reflective qualities of silk and the durablility of wool. This example has been embellished with brown and gold quatrefoil appliques mechanically stitched into position by a special machine invented by the Heileman Brothers who worked in the Alsace region of France. By the end of the American Civil War, the huge crinoline skirts that had reigned in the fashion world since the mid 1850s were deemed unsightly. A French fashion journal remarked in 1867, "large hoops are doomed, no one wears them in Paris now!" Fashion styles became universal at this time so that the basic shapes of garments seen in New England would have differed only slightly from those seen on the streets of Europe. Remnant of the dress material, HD 2004.32.1.1.
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https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+2004.32.1 |
