Dress

Unknown

1886 · silk · Costume Institute

This fashionable girl's dress was custom-made in Paris for the donor, Mrs. Barber, when she was 7 years old. Not only does the jacket follow the stylish lines of women's elegant dress of the time, it is constructed out of very sophisticated fabric that would have been used for adult clothing, and the buttons have very mature imagery on them. This is an example of what some might have felt was needlessly extravagant and uncomfortable attire for children, so popular during this period. Children's wear did not gain a universal level of comfort until the second quarter of the twentieth century.

Artist

Unknown

Date

1886

Medium

silk

Culture

French

Department

Costume Institute

Credit line

Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of the Brooklyn Museum, 2009; Gift of Tusi and Elizabeth Barber, 1970