#teagown

[frostedmagnolias]

Flannel Teagown

c. 1875

wool, silk, cotton, mother of pearl

Portland, Maine

Maine Historical Society

[mimicofmodes]

I desperately want to say something self-deprecating but instead I'm just going to say that I'm working on digitally redrafting some patterns I did more than a decade ago. They'll look so much better and potentially be more usable!

Once I'm done, I'll send them all to the Chapman so they can add them to their PastPerfect records. (Here's this one's record.)

To quote from my blog post on this piece:

Mariano Fortuny y Madrazo (1871-1949) is best remembered for two things: vibrantly patterned silks and velvets, and the Delphos gown, inspired by ancient Greek chitons (themselves imported from Asia Minor), which were made from a single rectangular panel of linen or silk sewn into a tube, the top edge fastened with brooches down the length of the arms, and belted to fit to the body. The Neoclassical revival had already begun in the decorative arts by 1907, when Fortuny developed the Delphos, and high fashion was beginning to show its influence as well – but this was much more extreme than anything else in existence at the time. Not only was it originally intended to be worn without a corset at home (corsetless teagowns had been worn for some time already), there was absolutely nothing about its design that hid that fact. The straight, clinging line would soon become mainstream fashion, but when the Delphos dress was first designed it was a radical departure.

[professorpski]

Designing Women: Fashion Creators and Their Interiors at Museum at FIT

Now through May 14, 2023, the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology has a show on women fashion designers who also did interior decoration from the late 19th Century onward. As both kinds of designing were part of the decorative arts, this made perfect sense to them. The same principles about the art of composition were used to design both. In fact, one of my early fashion books actually explains how to make each room of a house as harmonious as a woman’s clothing.

You see here a yellow, fur-trimmed tea gown from around 1918 which is attributed to Lucile, then a remarkably fluffy evening cape by Jeanne Paquin, evening cape, 1987, France, and lastly a painting by Henri Gervex which he called “Cinq Heures chez Paquin” or Five Hours at Paquin from 1906 which gives you the idea that women spent a lot of time picking out their purchases at the designer’s salon.

For more images and more information on visiting, go here: https://www.fitnyc.edu/museum/exhibitions/designing-women.php

[lilyabsinthe]

When friends are late for tea and I wore the new French silk gown. Lace from @elizabethemersondesigns . . #lilyabsinthe #frenchsilk #teagown #late #aestheticteaservice #corgi #pembrokewelshcorgi #Tombstone #oldwesttombstone #teaintheoldwest #thedressmakerscottage #antiquelace #Victorian #victoriandress #arizona #teafortwo #violetparlor (at The Dressmaker's Cottage at #11) https://www.instagram.com/p/CTiAS7Opvyu/?utm_medium=tumblr

[bethshistoricaldresses]

Silk Wrapper ca. 1855 The 19th Century wrapper is a house dress. It was worn to do the hard work that was so much a part of the life of 19th Century women. Floors need to be scrubbed, cows milked, laundry washed, children chased, meals prepared etc. etc., and none of this is really possible for a woman all trussed up in a corset and bustle. Working class women on the farm or in the tenement would frequently only have a wrapper, and not even possess a fashionable dress. Middle class women, who would wear fashionable finery to go out visiting, would wear a wrapper to do the housework. While most middle class families had maids of all work to help out, the lady of the house also did a lot of drudge work, and she did it in a wrapper. The wrapper, interestingly enough, got more fashionable as the century progressed, so that by the 1890s, ladies were entertaining other ladies in "Tea Wrappers". Source: Dress - The MET. Information on 'Wrapper' dresses - Lizzie Andrew Borden Forum, Life in Victorian America, Victorian Fashions (wrapper dress). #history #museumcollection #antiquetextile #instamuseum #museumoninstagram #antiquesilk #historicaldress #costumehistory #fashion #historicalfashion #historicalclothing #dresshistory #fashionhistory #historicalcostume #fashionhistorian #19thcentury #19thcenturyfashion #wrapper #teagown #victorian https://www.instagram.com/p/B7DQsxbAQr5/?igshid=136ps4op8xo4f

[defunctfashion]

Tea Gown | c. 1895 • • • This tea gown was made in Japan to an order for Western market. Its shape is a mixture of details of the 18th century style and the medieval style, which was revived at the end of the 19th century. It is made of taffeta, known as "seigo" in Japan, and embroidered with chrysanthemum flowers in a Japanese embroidery technique known as "nikuirinui". A tea gown is an elegant hostess' dress used as informal, indoor wear from the late 19th century to the beginning of 20th century. Women could loosen their tight corset to wear a tea gown. Many famous fashion houses in Paris introduced luxurious tea gowns decorated with laces and frills, which were more popular than the more practical ones made, for instance, by Liberty & Co. in London. Liberty & Co. was founded in 1875, and started importing and selling silk fabrics and indoor wear from Japan. In 1890 they opened a branch at Yokohama, Japan, where they worked with Japanese manufacturers to manufacture dresses and meet the demand. Although no labels remain, it is highly likely from Liberty & Co. • • • #historicalfashion #fashion #fashiondesign #fashionhistory #historyoffashion #vintagefashion #art #vintage #defunctfashion #costume #costumedesign #couture #costumehistory #teagown #kimono #victorian #victorianfashion #kyotocostumeinstitute https://www.instagram.com/p/BnUOTXGlaFN/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1wp6teqyru44q

[professorpski]

'I say, when you come to us, you couldn't possibly wear that ripping white trailing dress, could you?' 'The Callot or the Schiaparelli?' asked Mrs. Dean interested.

Oh, to be able to ask which haute couture gown. As this indicates, Mrs. Dean, a character in the novel August Folly by Angela Thirkell, is a wealthy woman. She refuses to wear said gown to dinner away from her home because it is a tea-gown and too informal. As she explains to the young man who brought it up, “I must dress up a little more when I am having my first dinner with your parents.” A good reminder that not everything haute couture was the most formal of evening gowns, and some were for lounging around your own house.

This novel was written in 1930 which indicates that grown women were still wearing tea gowns which had first surfaced in the late 19th century as loosely fitting dresses worn without corsets and thus worn for less formal occasions in one’s own home. Of course, the 1920s was supposed to be a period when the corset was discarded but many women had to wear corsets still in order to create from their curved bodies the test-tube silhouette which became the fashion.

You can find Thirkell’s books in reprints from Virago Books here:  https://www.virago.co.uk/?s=thirkell

[professorpski]

'I say, when you come to us, you couldn't possibly wear that ripping white trailing dress, could you?' 'The Callot or the Schiaparelli?' asked Mrs. Dean, interested. .... 'Oh, that tea-gown. It was very sweet of you to like it, Richard, but I must dress up a little more when I am having my first dinner with your parents.'

This exchange is a hoot for a few reasons. First, that the young man Richard describes the dress as “ripping” by which he means wonderful; second, that he doesn’t know that a tea-gown which was a casual form of dress reserved to be worn around the house even if in the presence of family friends; and third, that Mrs. Dean is so well-off that she has to think, hmmmm... which white trailing haute couture dress does he mean? Ah, to have such a puzzle to solve. Apparently, she has one by Callot Soeurs, a Parisian house which shut one year after this book, August Folly, was published in 1936. And she has another one by Elsa Schiaparelli, the Italian designer, who also set up shop in Paris.

Poor Richard has a terrible crush on the older, married Mrs. Dean, one of the common sub-plots of Angela Thirkell’s novels. The older woman always thinks the young man is a bit of a goose, and nothing comes of it. Thirkell wrote novels set in the English countryside among people with plenty of money and fashion shows up in numerous ways in their pages.

Virago Books has republished them and you can find them here: https://www.virago.co.uk/contributor/angela-thirkell/