Featured Evening gown help

I specialise in ceramics and know nothing about costume but when nobody was bidding on this dress at a local auction I felt that it was so nice I couldn’t leave it so it’s now mine.

Could anybody help me with the origin and date? There is no label. I think it is either silk or satin and machine embroidered with Chinese figures and flowers. It has a stiff underskirt with it.

It is very well made.

My amateur guess is Chinese c1960 but I would love your input.

Hope you can help.

John

 

I am just guessing, but I think it is late 40's and or 50's. My mom had some dresses that were cut like that I remember seeing on home movies.

 

I agree with late 40s/early 50s. It was in the 1950s that zippers moved from the side to the center back. And that paper-y stiffener was generally replaced by pellon sometime in the 1950s, too. I doubt that it's Chinese-made, thought the brocade fabric evokes Chinese designs. Chinoiserie was still quite popular in the 1940s.
Very pretty!

 

Thank you

 

It doesn't have a defined waist line so I would consider it a sheath evening dress. Popular silhouette in the 1950s and into the 1960s. Forgive me but... Yours would have been considered dowdy in its time. Not unlikely that someone brought back a bolt of fabric from Hong Kong and produced from pattern.

Debora

 

Just want to add... Quite elaborate construction. Don't think done by a home sewer. Seamstress perhaps.

Debora

 

Wow, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I guess!

 

I can just see the home movie now in my mind of my mom sitting in a dress like that when she was visiting a relative and holding on to the stroller that held my older brother.

 

I thought 1950s right off, but early to mid rather than circa 1960. The necklines are the giveaway to an old jewelry seller. There were a lot of small dress stores at the time, and professional seamstresses. These are beyond the gifts of most home sewers, especially messing with satin (been there done that, don't want to do it again!) but not beyond professional machines in a smaller professional outfit.

 

Agreed! I just love it!

 

Whoever she was, she liked that color.

 

Gosh, it is just lovely! Just as pretty on the inside as out!
I agree with the 50-early 60's date and someone who was an experienced seamstress...
Beautifully made!
Leslie

 

I too agree with the 50's-early-60's date (probably late-50s at the earliest though). I also agree with Debora that someone may have brought the fabric (which looks like silk satin brocade) back from Hong Kong, and then had the dress custom made. My husband brought me silk brocade fabric from Hong Kong when he was a Navy pilot in the late-60s (it was a much higher quality than what I see today), but I never made anything out of it. I think by the late-60s that type of fabric was out of style for young women in their 20s. In its day, however, I could see it being worn by the wife of a wealthy businessman to a charity ball or a formal country club event, or worn by the wife of a military officer to a formal dining out.

Seeing it on a hanger in a photo doesn't do it justice. I'm sure it looks beautiful in person, and I can understand why you couldn't leave it at the auction. I think it would be quite figure flattering on the right person with its deep and wide V-neckline, the bodice seams and darts that accentuate the bust, the slimming vertical waist seams, the smooth skirt front and the full skirt back. The only drawback for some buyers might be the design motifs on the brocade fabric.

It certainly must have cost quite a lot to have it made. The lining fabric looks like it could be silk taffeta or peau de soie, and the tailoring is exquisite the way all the seam allowances are hidden under the lining, not to mention having a separate underskirt. If you sell it, it would be best to display it on a mannequin or dress form, and gently clip it to fit the mannequin.

 

Agree. It would have been lovely on a woman with the right figure, coloring and accessories. Might even have had a matching evening bag.

Debora

 

Thank you Joan, I will certainly take your advice.