The Jazzy Flapper Dress
From hand-stitched dance rag to artful heirloom
When we find a world in tatters, the work begins. We gaze at the pieces, searching for the story. What happened here? How can I make sense of it? Do I have the power to mend the tears, to make whole what is shattered?
Before Thanksgiving, Z’s granddaughter gave me two plastic bags containing her grandmother’s “flapper dresses” from the 1920s. “Maybe you can do something with these,” she said. We peeked inside one of the bags. The ivory crepe de chine silk was heavily beaded and fringed. When Z’s daughter lifted an edge, her finger poked a hole through the decaying fabric. Loose beads fell off.
Z’s mother, Orpha Spicer, is an icon to us all. Born in 1905 in Glens Falls, New York, she was the brilliant eldest child of Walter and Aimee Spicer. Walter was a cashier for National Express and Aimee worked as a private duty nurse. In high school, Orpha acted, sang, and became editor-in-chief of the school magazine. In 1923, she won a state scholarship to Cornell, where she majored in journalism, continued her acting and singing, and joined the crew team. Her diaries tell us that she also went to dances, concerts, and movies several times a week with a variety of young men. (She kept lists of their names at the back of her diaries.)
It follows that she would have party dresses in the jazzy fashion of the day.
At home, I emptied the bags onto my work table. Silver-lined glass beads rolled off onto the floor. Oh, my. The glittering rags amounted to one dress (with a giant, smashed pink bow) and a puzzling circular garment beaded in the same style. A cape? No, the inner circle was too roughly finished. Inside the dress was a scrunched-up silk lining, badly deteriorated, oddly extending several inches beyond the fringe at the lower edge. What was that about?
A mystery before me, I dug into the history of 1920s fashion. The Great War was over, Prohibition promised to make men stay home, and women had the vote. Corsets were relaxed and tube dresses with dropped waists were à la mode. Erogenous zones shifted to newly revealed ankles and bare arms. Beading and fringe provided sparkle and movement.
Could I decipher our dress’s story and preserve it as a family heirloom? I made up a box of supplies from my stash: white silk ribbon, ecru thread, a few pieces of old off-white silk, and some long white silk scarves I had ordered for dye projects — whatever might help bring it back to life.
While silk is a strong fiber, unfortunate exposures (from processing chemicals to perspiring human skin) cause it to shatter in long strips or decay into dust. With luck, it may be stabilized with a backing of crepeline, a loose-woven silk organza. I ordered some of that.
My research told me that some 1920s dresses were constructed in two layers: an opaque foundation layer with a bandeau bodice and shoulder straps; and a diaphanous outer layer often made of netting or tulle. The layers were joined at the dropped waistband. This is how Orpha’s dress was constructed.
In studying the silk foundation layer, I saw that the fabric extending below the line of beaded fringe was an add-on — joined with hand-stitching, more yellowed but less decayed. Aha! I suddenly realized that the second circular garment had been an additional tier of fringe, originally attached to the underdress. When it had been removed, the dress was a little too short. The 1920s celebrated ankles, but knees were a no-no. Twelve inches of silk was sewn on to preserve the modesty of Orpha’s knees.
I took measurements. The idea worked. What was the story? Orpha was about 5'5." With two tiers of fringe, the dress would have come to her ankles and would have been nearly twice as heavy — a formal gown, not good for dancing the charleston. Had it been purchased for a wedding or cotillion ball, then shortened to extend its usefulness? Or did she buy it second-hand and have it altered to her youthful taste?
A more immediate question: could I reattach the bottom tier to restore the dress to its original length? Could I do anything without the whole thing falling into shreds? The dress was an injured wild animal, a feral cat, resisting my efforts to lay it flat or hang it up, constantly slithering out of my control.
If the dress was going to be a wild thing, then I would have to become a dress whisperer, taming it in tiny, gentle steps.
I began with “finding” the neckline and armholes and stabilizing them with silk ribbon. How telling that the most deteriorated parts of the dress were the under-arms and upper back, the parts that caressed the skin of a dancing college student.
Over the course of a month, I lined the bodice with crepeline, hand-sewing across holes and the rotting threads of beadwork. I tore out the decayed foundation dress. I made paper patterns and diagrams to help discern the actual construction. I measured and re-measured.
In order to reattach the lower tier of fringe, I had to recreate the foundation dress from my cache of silk scarves. Attaching the new underdress to the original satin straps helped get the positioning right. As with the original, the new layer was stitched to the beaded waistband of the outer dress, helping to stabilize the whole enterprise. I did most of this while the dress lay flat on my work table. Lifting it upright and slipping it onto a hanger was the test of my amateur engineering — would it all hold together or would the bodice finally rip apart?
It worked!
I found a petite dress form for the gown and continued my repairs, neatening edges and sewing a few more hanging fragments to the crepeline backing. It stands now as a work-of-art-under-restoration. Glass-headed pins and a threaded needle still grace one of the armholes. More padding is needed at the hips to raise the waistband slightly. I still have to figure out a method to stabilize the unraveling beads.
The dress will never be “restored.” It is the act of mending that matters. For a few hours, I can touch the mind and feel the intention of a maker who worked a hundred years ago. For a few hours, I can ponder how Orpha filled out her dress, wonder how often she wore it, and note her own tiny repairs, all the while sensing her lively spirit beside me. With my needle and thread, I can partake in a conversation across space and time.
In a ragged world, it is the act of mending that matters.
