The 19th Century Reception Dress : insight gained during the process of replication

Abstract

The fact that costumes have a close relationship to the structure of a society of a particular time is undisputed. Therefore, in order to understand our present costume style better we should study the 19th century, a period of scientific and dramatic history. In England, the Industrial Revolution began in the latter half of the 18th century, and ended by the time of the Second French Empire in the 19th century. It brought all kinds of innovations to industry and commerce. The actual course of the Industrial Revolution was led by advances made in the textile industry. This indicates the primary importance of clothing manufacturing to the society at that time. Mass production of high quality products at lower prices had now become possible due to various inventions and subsequent improvements in weaving and sewing machines, as well as concurrent developments in trade circulation influenced sewing styles and ornamentation. The dress presented here has been reproduced as faithfully as possible from an article written by Akiko Ota and Atsuko Miyoshi in 'Dresstudy' magazine called "Machine-Made Lace of the 1870's" (Spring 1987 pp16-21). To use lace and ribbon as freely as the more common materials was unthinkable in the days of hand manufacture. In this example, 68.6 metres from five kinds of lace have been used, with widths ranging from 1cm to 8cm. There is also 17.4metres of three kinds of ribbon. The main dress material is 15metres of organdie linen, 92cm wide. The techniques and designs made possible by the new machine sewing are highly apparent.