Is there an app for that? A Wedding Dress; A Wedding Shoe, 1870s

I am partial to the cut of 1880s and 1890s, with fitted jackets over yard after yard of skirt and trim. Despite the activity and asymmetry of the skirt, there is a balance to the lavish whole. American or European, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Acc. # C.I.45.83a, b

This is going to be a simple post but one that sums up the opportunities we have before us in this technological, image-driven age. There is nothing new here–-just a short tale of how connected we can be and the ability we have to make connections across countries and cultures, which were absent or laborious, at best, for previous generations.  For historians of material culture and costume history like myself, the technology opens doors that had been shut.

This morning I posted this lavish, lovely 1870 wedding dress from the collections of the Metropolitan Museum in NYC, USA.  I shared it on Twitter and Facebook, as usual.  Not only was the response a staggering number of shares and retweets, but I was delighted to find that The Shoe Museum, Somerset, UK (Clark's shoes) kindly went through their vast shoe inventory to locate and send along an image of these dreamy shoes (1879) to accompany the wedding dress. The cream ribbed silk, embroidered with silk and pearls would have provided a perfect counterpoint to the gown.

Despite being worn separately, they convey a sense of the Victorian era on both sides of the Atlantic–-shared impulses of style & fashion, fabrics & finishes.

Detail of silk skirt with large "ribbons" (which trail off into further detail) from the 1880s wedding dress,
possibly American (above).

The Metropolitan Museum of Art (http://www.metmuseum.org/collections) The Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide provides a comprehensive view of art history spanning five millennia and the entire globe. (http://store.metmuseum.org/invt/mmanewguide#.UqnPjKXm4fZ)

The Shoe Museum houses hundreds of historic shoes, including Roman, Medieval and Victorian and tells the history of Clarks Shoes.  Street, Somerset

www.clarks.co.uk/HistoryandHeritage...