Historic Clothing Collection

Bedecked with wide satin ribbons, Myra Bradeen Philpot’s dainty cotton sprig-print 1894 summer wedding dress features large topped sleeves encased in semi-transparent tulle that creates a gigot-style effect. Her bridegroom Melville Philpot wore a black satin lapel tail coat, vest and elegant gray black striped trousers. Perhaps the most extreme mid-1890s sleeves are found among the collection’s wedding dresses, one of which is a long trained crisp woven stripe silk, worn by Jessie Christine Carter of Bath when she married Dr. Langdon T. Snips in 1896. Another is a statuesque gown of heavy cream satin, a similar fabric to the Haskell Silk Company wedding satin. Aside from wedding dresses, a bodice with a black satin vest-effect, labeled "Miss L. K. Stanley, 511½ Congress Street, Portland, Maine," features a mid-1890s balloon-sleeved blouse of red figured dress silk, the silk type now affordable and readily available.