1910s Emily McDonald net dress

Contributed by: The Australian Museum of Clothing and Textiles

Front view of net dress Closer front view of dress Different front view of dress Close up of bobbinet collar, lace edging and organdy panels with embroidery Back view of dress Close up of bobbinet Close up of self belt and bobble buttons
  • Australian dress register ID:

    585
  • Owner:

    The Australian Museum of Clothing and Textiles
  • Owner registration number:

    35.7.2005:346 A and B
  • Date range:

    1910 - 1915
  • Place of origin:

    Gosforth, New South Wales, Australia
  • Gender:

    Female
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Object information

Significance statement

This well provenanced, historically and aesthetically significant full-length white bobbinet dress is a rare example of a wartime special occasion dress.

Entirely handmade with cotton bobbinet and cotton organdy, it is a fine demonstration of John Heathcote's bobbinet machine, patented in 1809, which enabled fine net to be easily produced in wide widths for dresses, which could be hand-embroidered to achieve individual and attractive effects. Net dresses were worn with underdresses of plain silk in white or in a matching colour. 

Fashion leaders such as Empress Josephine, Napoleon's first wife, helped to popularise dresses of machine net, or 'tulle', which was also produced in France. She owned many machine-made net dresses embroidered with silver or gold metal thread and spangles for formal court occasions.

Emily Susan McDonald’s dress is in very good to excellent condition, and significative of Craignair and the McDonald’s importance to the Gosforth community. 

Author: Eloise Maree Crossman, 01.06.2015.

Description

Full-length white bobbinet dress with wide collar edged with lace. Collar decorated with lines of cotton woven in and out of holes in net. The cuffs have similar decoration also with similar lace edging.

Panels of white organdy decorated with embroidered ovals with a black flower in centre adorn the bodice and skirt, and these panels are surrounded by insertion lace. 

The three-piece skirt has a placket and hemstitched seams, with a row of insertion lace around the skirt above the hem and three rows of fine tucks above that.

Finally, there is an attached gathered belt (part B) made of self material fastened with two hook-and-eyes and decorated at fastening with four crocheted bobble buttons.

There are hook-and-eye fastenings down both sides of the front and cuffs 

History and Provenance

Do you have any stories or community information associated with this?

Emily Susan McDonald (nee Atkins) (and affectionately known as Cousin Em, or Cousin) was born in 1865 in Scotch Corner, Gosforth (near Maitland), Australia.

Emily married Archibald (Arch) McDonald, a clerk at the O. K. Young Produce Store in High Street, (West) Maitland (as the town was known in those days). For some years they lived in Elgin Street in town, until their new Gosforth home ‘Craignair’ was built.

Craignair, so named after Arch’s family home in Scotland, was a federation style, weatherboard house designed by architect Will McEvoy on an acre of land (complete with an orchard, a cow, turkeys, hens, guinea fowls and a pet fox kept on a chain). 

Emily had one of Maitland’s earliest telephones installed. Their phone number was 33, the thirty-third phone in town. Emily arranged with O. K. Young to ring her when Arch left work each day (as he was rather fond of whisky).

Emily and Arch were paid a government subsidy to take care of a state ward, Roy, who worked on the farm and in the house both before and after school in return for his keep.

Craignair was the venue for many a local celebration. One really grand function, Christmas Remembrance Evening, which was reported in the Maitland Mercury, raised money for the Australian Expeditionary Forces in World War I. Emily often held concerts to raise money for the Maitland Hospital and for the Comforts Fund, and even organised a party to celebrate a local couple’s engagement. Emily’s cream net dress would have been worn on such occasions (if not the Christmas Remembrance Evening itself). 

Emily died in 1946 aged eighty-one. 

How does this garment relate to the wider historical context?

Emily’s special occasion dress for school picnics to concerts to fundraising events is a fine example of a bobbinet garment.

John Heathcote's bobbinet machine, patented in 1809, enabled fine net to be easily produced in wide widths for dresses, which could be hand-embroidered to achieve individual and attractive effects. Net dresses were worn with underdresses of plain silk in white or in a matching colour. 

Fashion leaders such as Empress Josephine, Napoleon's first wife, helped to popularise dresses of machine net, or 'tulle', which was also produced in France. She owned many machine-made net dresses embroidered with silver or gold metal thread and spangles for formal court occasions. 

Where did this information come from?

Hard Work Wont Hurt You: A History of the Rural Community of Gosforth and District by Pat Barden and Nell Pyle, 

Nell Pyle oral history 

  1. Place of origin:

    Gosforth, New South Wales, Australia

  2. Owned by:

    Emily McDonald 

    (Now owned by The Australian Museum of Clothing and Textiles, by way of Nell Pyle, Emily's second cousin and founder of AMCAT) 

  3. Worn by:

    Emily McDonald 

  4. Occasion(s):

    Special occasions such as Christmas Remembrance Evening 

     

  5. Place:

    Craignair, Gosforth 

    Also worn by Nell Pyle when at Grossmann House in 1940 in a school parade to raise moneyforthewareffort.

  6. Made by:

    Emily McDonald 

Trimmings / Decoration

Lace edging, insertion lace, embroidered organdy panels 

Fibre / Weave

Bobbinet (a type of tulle netting), lace and organdy

  1. Natural dye
  2. Synthetic dye

Manufacture

  1. Hand sewn
  2. Machine sewn
  3. Knitted
  4. Other

Cut

  1. Bias
  2. Straight

Fastenings

There are hook-and-eye fastenings down both sides of the front and cuffs 

  1. Hook and eye
  2. Lacing
  3. Buttons
  4. Zip
  5. Drawstring

Condition

Very good to excellent condition

Very delicate 

State

  1. Excellent
  2. Good
  3. Fair
  4. Poor

Damage

  1. Discolouration
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