Figured Silk Dress

America or England

ca. 1830s

Colonial Williamsburg Foundation

Silk with cotton lining

This is a taupe-colored gown of floral-figured silk. It has a full skirt and fitted bodice that comes to a point slightly above the natural waist. The bodice is lined with cotton and contains a vertical piece of boning down the center front. It is further decorated with a band of horizontal pleating across the bust. The dress has dropped gigot (or leg-o-mutton) sleeves with vertical pleating at the shoulders.

Condition Before Treatment

The gown was in good to fair structural and aesthetic condition with numerous minor issues. The bands of piping on the sleeves were detached in numerous areas, and the seams near the proper right cuff and where the skirt attaches to the bodice were partially ripped. The pleating in the bodice was severely disrupted.

Crease Reduction

Areas of creasing in the pleated bodice and skirt were contact humidified locally through Tyvek. The goal of the humidification of the pleats was two-fold: to reduce unwanted creases and to reset original pleating. This was a difficult balance, but both of these goals were achieved.

Condition After Treatment

The dress is now in good structural and aesthetic condition. All ripped seams and detached piping have been stabilized using hair silk.

The pleating in the bodice now lays flat is no longer visually distracting.