Dress #098: Victorian dress in black Seal with curving lines of couched

with curving lines of couched floss imitating the piping of the original dress

Materials: Italian Florentine paper

The original dress is held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art (accession 2009

and the skirt is constructed in a single piece that wraps around the hips and features three self-covered flat buttons at the back left

Dress #098: Victorian dress in black Seal with curving lines of couchedWhen I first saw this ca. 1885 travelling ensemble in an Augusta Auctions catalogue from 2024, I had two thoughts: This is the gothest thing Ive ever seen, and; Sadly, all that black on black wont translate well into stitched paper. I was correct about the first, but it turns out I was wrong about the second! 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