dress

Description: Dress, c.1920-1925. Purple silk with beige silk crepe. Straight cut, long sleeves, scalloped collar with sash, rhinestone buttons on bodice, dropped waist with bow and slightly flared skirt. The scalloped collar sits around a rounded slight V neckline, with an inner band of beige crepe. At its point hangs a beige sash edged with scalloped purple silk. The scalloped outer edges are finished with machine zig-zag stitching. The sleeves are long with cuff openings that close with a snap. On the front right of the bodice, coming straight up from the dropped waist, is a row of six buttons with three clear white rhinestones each. On the left front just above the waistline there is a purple silk bow. The waistline itself consists of a row of top stitching that is straight in the back and curves upwards into a soft point at centre front. Top stitched to the bodice, the skirt falls below the knee. It is slightly flared with three gores in the front and one in the back. The hem is finished with a narrow double fold on the front and back. There is a paper label sewn into left sleeve cuff reads "Style", "Cloth", "329" handprinted; "Size", "20", "Operat- or", "BOO" ?; "Remarks"; "96", punched-out "E"; finisher "26"; "Deckelbaum Inc., Montreal."

Object History: This dress was part of a collection of dresses acquired from a dry goods store in the Okanagan. The dresses were mainly "new" old stock from the 1920s, from two Rand’s Dry Goods stores in Penticton and Summerland, B.C. The stores closed down in 1930. The dresses are estimated to date from circa 1925 to 1930.

Research