The dress of the day is a made over dress from the 1700’s and made over in the 1840’s.

I thought it would be interesting to have a made over gown to show how some of these lovely gowns where reworn and reworn, lets say great grandmother Elizabeth had a really great silk brocade ball gown that cost 3 months salary but it was her best gown, she might have even gotten married in it, and would have worn the gown to numerous balls in it or had dinner in it with an a aristocrat i.e. some families only had one really elegant grand gown and often times it was reused and reused for all kinds of formal occasions now a dress like this Elizabeth would have gotten lets say around 1770 and made by a wonderful seamstress Lets say Elizabeth got this gown around age 16 and would have worn it till lets say 1805 then she might have given into the empire waisted gowns, but she would have stored it in a truck or linen closet or clothes press somewhere it would be safe from mouths and dust and other things, now lets say its been stored for 35 years and now great grand daughter needs a good dress but has no money for one, what will Cora do? No money but she’s invited to a big ball that her neighborus a Lord and Lady are having, well I will tell you what is done Cora’s mother gets out the old dress of great grandmother Elizabeth its of the best silk brocade far nicer than what they could afford so Cora’s mother would have made it over to be in the new fashion, it wouldn’t have been many changes but just enough to make it look new instead of old, so now with the dress remade Cora can go to the ball and look great….I.e. this is what happened many times with made over clothes, and so it got once again more life, and once again it was wowed and loved, and this dress below is just one of these examples, made in the 1770’s and made over in the early 1840’s.



























Wonderful cream colored silk brocade with lovely flowers in the brocade it still has the original detachable sleeves and this wonderful gorgeous dress is from around 1770-75 and made over in 1840-44, great dress and much loved.