COMMENTARY
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dress conversions
I recently picked up a 1971 issue of the Bulletin of the Costume Institute (Met Museum) on ebay, and there’s a fascinating article on dress conversions. Apparently a number of dresses in the Met’s collection, including the 1690-95 mantua that’s in In Style: Celebrating 50 Years of the Costume Institute and this 1780s robe a l’anglaise were remade at various points in their life, and the museum decided to reconvert them back to as “original” a state as they could. |
The 1780s robe a l’anglaise, for example, was actually originally a 1760 robe a la francaise, later remade around 1785ish, and then again around 1900. They found some really interesting things when they unpicked the dress — for example, when they took apart the c. 1900 bodice, they found a pleat at the bodice side front seams that covered the original (1760s) armhole.
Fascinating reading!