Dress #045: Victorian dress in blues

This hand stitched Victorian paper dress is made from Japanese paper embellished with glass beads; shiny blue rayon fibres embedded in the surface of the darker paper provide a contrast to the lush feathered texture of the paler blue. It was the severe lines that attracted me to this dress, as it differs from the swags of fabric often found all over Victorian bustle dresses (although I love those, too).

This was the first time I layered my papers, instead of cutting each piece to fit together like puzzle pieces; most of my paper dresses are now assembled in this fashion. The dress is hand stitched on cold-pressed 100% cotton paper. The piece is based on an American dress from the early 1880s, held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art (accession 1989.246.1a, b).

The dress is six inches tall, stitched by hand on 8x10 inch 100% cotton watercolour paper, which means that it will pop right into any commercial frame in that size, and be ready to hang on your wall.