Whanganui Regional Museum's oldest dress a more relaxed fit for natural form

Front, back and sides of the Regency dress donated by Meta Harrison, dating from the late 1820s. Photo / Whanganui Regional Museum Collection ref: 1957.63.4

The featured dress in the museum's June 'Outfit of the Month' exhibition is the earliest dated dress in the museum collection.

Dating from the late 1820s, it is a pretty and elegant dress made from pale yellow silk faille and has a woven dot pattern. The dress follows the stylistic trends of that time which were derived from classical Greek and Roman fashion. It was a time when rigid corsetry and compressed body shapes were replaced by a more relaxed style that allowed the body a more natural form.

This dress stems from what was known as the Regency period. George, Prince of Wales, was the Regent in Britain, reigning in place of his father, King George III, who was incapacitated by a mental illness, from 1811 to 1820. When, as George IV, the Prince Regent ascended the throne in 1820, fashion continued to be defined as Regency until Victoria ascended the throne in 1837.

Fashion from this period evokes the style of Jane Austen's novels with the Empire line style, where the drape of the dress falls from under the bust line rather than the waist. The dress style was named after the first French Empire, created by Napoleon Bonaparte after the French Revolution. This was a key classical detail that was adapted to emphasise the move away from the rigid pomp of the monarchy to the perceived freedom of the Republic. The dress style was made popular by Napoleon's wife Josephine.

The dress has a boat-shaped neckline on a fitted bodice, and leg-of-mutton sleeves. You can see small, regular stitches that create the darts, on the fitted bodice; the occasional slightly larger or smaller stitch shows that the dress was hand sewn. Sewing machines, having just been invented, were not widely available at this time. The skirt has been made from four panels of fabric, which use the entire width of the fabric from selvage edge to selvage edge, and a further two half panels. All six panels are gathered at the Empire line. A calico band with drawstrings defines the line; it would have been covered by an attractive ribbon which unfortunately did not come with the dress when it was donated.

The use of padding and decorative rolls and flounces around the hem are another feature of this period of dress. On our dress the decorative band of toning fabric, inserted at knee level, conceals the stitching of the addition of a backing fabric that holds a layer of wool wadding. The rest of the skirt is unlined. The function of the padding at the hem is probably to hold the shape of the skirt when made from light fabrics.

The slight lowering of the Empire line and the sleeve style help to date this dress to the late 1820s. Going through the family tree of the donor we can say this dress was probably worn by one of the donor's grandmothers. It's most likely to have been her maternal grandmother, Anna Maria Wood, who was born in England on December 31, 1802, and married Hugh Ross on July 23, 1829, in Hobart, Tasmania.

The couple and their family emigrated to Wellington and then the Whanganui region. Anna died on September 3, 1853, in Kai Iwi at the age of 51. Their only daughter, Louisa Maria Ross, married Henry Nevison Harrison on January 23, 1867.

Harrison Street, in Whanganui and in Fordell, are linked to this family. Henry and Louisa's daughter, Miss Meta Harrison, who died in 1957, bequeathed both her mother's and her grandmother's dresses to the museum. It's a true family treasure that we can all study and enjoy.