Mustard dress with short leg-of-mutton sleeve

This is the dress Norma Evans was wearing the night she met her future husband Bob at the Returned Services Association ball in Kurow in 1944. "It was wartime, so we had short frocks" she recalls "I'd come from Miss Sprott's apprenticeship, and the sleeve treatment is a pattern that I had pinched." Norma, who deems this to be her "favourite dress", wore it to other balls.

Details

Credit: Images courtesy of Rotorua Museum Te Whare Taonga o Te Arawa (1996.22.476)
Copyright: Image © Rotorua Museum Te Whare Taonga o Te Arawa
Maker: Norma Evans
Manufacturing location: Kurow, North Otago
Garment type: Dress
Material: Crepe
Features: This dress features a gathered yoke, a four-piece leg-of-mutton style sleeve, and a 10-panelled skirt. The dress is distinguished by extraordinary sewing detail including canvas stiffening at the sleeve top, a sweet-heart neckline and hand applied green beading in a grape and vine-leaf pattern on the bodice. The back is fastened with six green buttons and loops and the belt is an edge-to-edge tie style. The side placket is domed and the dress has belt keepers.
Date: 1944