Acquired from Josie Grant

This dress is made from a Crysède silk printed in ‘London Pride’, a design somewhat different in concept from the large scale examples based on Cornish landscapes painted by Crysède’s owner Alec Walker used for other garments in our collection (see Related Items). Tiny scenes of London landmarks – the Thames and Tower Bridge, a Trafalgar Square lion, a mounted guardsman – appear amongst a conventional pattern of small flowers and foliage with no sense of scale.

For more information on the Crysède company see Related Items.

The dress is beautifully constructed, and, in common with many other garments of the period, the complexity of its cut is masked by the busy design of the fabric. Its large collar is edged at the front with five hand-worked spirals of rouleau silk, the fullness of the bodice is gathered into the front waist in a large ruched semicircle, the cuffs and back neck are fastened with covered buttons and silk loops, and the separate tie belt is graded in width to each end.