Stepping Out

Iridescent Blue Tissue Taffeta Dress
1875
Gift of Carol Winship

This two-piece dress, with its low drawn-back bustle, is an example of the complex cutting required in the making of dresses of this period. Dressmakers in the 1870s were required to cut very odd-shaped pieces of fabric and schedule fittings with their customers. Much of the draped effect was impossible to achieve without the garment actually being on the eventual wearer.

This long bustle preced the "shelf" bustle of 1885.