1920s Baby Dress Is Entirely Hand Sewn

It is pure joy to take a lighted jeweler’s loop and examine this exceptional little dress because the dress is made with thousands upon thousands of hand stitches and covered with exceptionally fine detail embroidery, padded white on white embroidery, cutwork and drawnwork…all by hand. The sweet neckline is trimmed with silk, handmade bobbin lace.

Made from downy white and silky soft cotton lawn, the dress fastens with three snaps. One is early and with a design quite obviously original to the dress, and two were replaced a few decades later. Snaps and fasteners always help date period pieces like this. The beautiful mother of pearl buttons that decorate the dress, but which were not used to fasten it, were likely added somewhat later.

The front of the bodice is covered with handmade eyelet and the bodice is lined across the front so that it covers the child’s flesh entirely. 

This dress took weeks to create and is a rare and beautiful treasure. The dress would have been quite costly in its day and dates to circa 1920.