"Dressed to Impress"

Since mankind's first forays into body covering there has been an unspoken desire to impress each other. With whatever we wore there has always been that inner question "How do I look in this? What are people going to think about me?"

At no time is this more evident than during the social season of Christmas. The group of dresses in this exhibit come from two centuries of festive wear. They are chosen for their period representation and to....impress.

Most pre WWII clothes are "bespoke". That is, the clothes are custom made. After WWII the changing economic climate made “Ready To Wear” more popular. Either way the point of these clothes was to turn heads.

Departing from our standard form when drawing from a variety of periods, in this exhibit we show the pieces out of chronological order. We are happy to tell you the date of each piece, but we thought you might like to test you fashion knowledge and date the pieces yourself – a fun “test” is available in the exhibit room.