Lace Dress

Complete dresses in lace are rare. To make all the pattern pieces needed for a dress in expensive lace techniques would only have been available to the very wealthy. This 1900 dress had two bodices, one for day wear and one for evening wear. It was never worn. An American lace collector bought it in Brussels in the 1920's, at a time when it would have been a "white elephant" for the store who owned it. Seldom had fashion changed so radically as between 1900 and 1920.