Dress #092: Regency dress in red netting

This hand-stitched paper dress is based on an English evening dress from ca. 1810. You may recognize it as one of the costumes from the most recent film adaptation of Jane Austen’s Emma (featuring Anya Taylor-Joy being perfect in every way).

The original dress, held by the Victoria & Albert (accession T.194-1958), is made of red silk machine-made net; they display it with a white underdress. The V&A decided not to acquire the original red underdress, as it was in very poor condition. The embroidery is chenille, and I re-interpreted it in glass beads.

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.