Wedding dress skirt

This is the overskirt of a dress worn by Betsy Vivian (b.1819) for her marriage to William Gibson Craig in Swansea, August 1840. It was made from long rectangular strips of silk net individually embroidered with appliqué floral motifs, which have then been joined together with narrow machine-made braid. The embroidery technique, using tiny pieces of semi-sheer cotton lawn, is called Carrickmacross work, and was first developed in the early nineteenth century.

When Betsy and William’s daughter donated the skirt to the V&A she told us that her grandmother, Betsy’s mother, made it. Whilst the skirt is very beautifully done, the strips of net are of slightly uneven widths and the appliqué work down each strip is not always perfectly centred. The randomness of the pattern and some tiny flaws in its laying-out are also signs that it is not by a professional embroiderer. The variety of floral motifs in the embroidery, including at least nine distinct flowers, is notable. The family story was that the skirt was made before Betsy knew who she would marry, so her mother embroidered English roses, Irish shamrocks and Scottish thistles into it in case Betsy’s husband came from outside Wales.