Dress

When the straight sleeve of this dress is extended to its full length the lower edge of the black and blue embroidered panel is trimmed with a bright red strip of plush. When it is turned back to form a cuff, however, an entirely different effect is revealed: the lower part of each sleeve has been faced with a band of cotton velvet richly embroidered with wool and trimmed with a metal braid, pink glass beads and pink sequins. The thickly fringed cotton collar of this dress has been similarly decorated with short lengths of commercially produced trimmings: facings of fine red felt printed with silver, woven braid with an added line of rickrack, a pretty net and crochet edging with an added row of delicate pink glass beads and, finally, an assortment of odd beads loosely strung so that they hang in clusters.

Such decorations were mass-produced in large urban centres and followed the prevailing fashions. Where they decorate a traditional peasant dress they have usually been applied sparingly, because of their relative expense. In this example there was not enough embroidered velvet to make complete facings and 3.5 cm gaps have been cleverly positioned on the inside of each sleeve, where they would not be seen.