Elegant walking dress takes the floor

This elegant walking dress is the Whanganui Regional Museum's Outfit of the Month. Photo / Karen Hughes

The Whanganui Regional Museum announces the October edition of Ko te Kakahu o te Marama — Outfit of the Month.

The selected outfit is a women's walking dress, dating from the mid to late 1830s.

The muslin cotton dress was made in England around the start of Queen Victoria's reign in 1837.

WRM collection manager Trish Nugent-Lyne says the dress would have been worn with a corset and with at least six layers of petticoats.

"The style is definitely late 1830s with its shape, smocking, pleating on the bodice and gigot sleeves."

With the removal of a modesty cape, the dress becomes an evening garment and remarkably, its structure also has one other function — it undoes at the front to become a post-natal dress for nursing mothers.

In a free event for the public at 12.15pm on Friday, September 30, Trish Nugent-Lyne will host a 15-minute floor talk in the Museum to discuss further the outfit's fabric, design and print. The dress will be on exhibition throughout October.