Deep inside the museum archives, Tori Pyle peels away layer after layer of tissue paper until she reveals a pile of black fabric covered in glinting jet beads. She and Damayanthie Eluwawalage carefully lift the fabric from the box and slowly unfold a one-of-a-kind beaded dress.
“See how nice it is?” Eluwawalage says.
Eluwawalage, a costume historian, looks for clothing like this as part of her research. She goes to museums like LancasterHistory to learn more about how we have dressed through different eras. This beaded dress, worn by President James Buchanan’s niece, is one of the most mesmerizing costumes she’s discovered.
“The whole thing’s beaded. See how heavy it is?” Eluwawalage says. “It’s one of the nicest things I’ve ever seen.”
During her research, Eluwawalage has waded through collections of museums large and small, sketched dresses found in attics and once noticed the promise of a gown buried in the mess of a friend’s car. It was being used as a Halloween costume.
Eluwawalage is on a quest to learn more about how Pennsylvanians dressed from the 17th century to the early 20th century. Even if the clothing isn’t as exquisite as that beaded dress, she is looking for well-preserved items to learn about culture, style and more.
“If you look at that item in (a) different context — social context, gender context, sociological context, historical context or economical context, then you understand more,” she says. “It tells the story of the society and the culture and the people who lived there, their way of life.”
Eluwawalage, a professor at Albright College in Reading, started her research in her native Australia and continued it in England and upstate New York, where she taught at State University of New York at Oneonta. Last year, when she came to Albright, she shifted her focus to Pennsylvania.
In her free time, Eluwawalage looks for men’s, women’s and children’s clothing from the past.
Museums may have items in their collections, but often the details about who wore the piece, where it was worn and who made it are lost. That provenance gives context and helps her to learn even more.
Often, that kind of information can be found in someone’s home, in a wedding dress passed down from generation to generation or a vintage child’s dressing gown. That’s exactly what Eluwawalage is looking for.
She’ll inspect, photograph and sketch each item, then share tips about proper storage of the clothing.
Overlooked history
While we may treasure a special item of clothing, like a military uniform or a wedding dress, a costume is often an overlooked part of history. That’s unfortunate because there’s much to learn from them, Eluwawalage says.
“Even though people regard costume history as a women’s business, it is one of the most interdisciplinary histories because it can be understood sociologically, historically, in a gender context, in every context,” she says.
She began her Pennsylvania research in Reading, and now she’s branching out.
The Historical Society of the Cocalico Valley has costumes in its collection, many of which have the proper documentation. An added bonus: The dresses were worn by working-class women. While they’re not as glamorous as the beaded gown worn by Buchanan’s niece, they’re rare because these plain dresses are less likely to be saved.
LancasterHistory recently gave Eluwawalage a fellowship with a small stipend to conduct research at its museum. There, she has researched costumes kept in the archives as well as relevant newspaper articles and advertisements.
Clothing tells a story
During the time period Eluwawalage is researching, she has found there are a lot of similarities in the clothing worn by people across the social strata. Trends start at the highest levels of the social hierarchy and then trickle down. This leads to a lot of similarities in dress, at least for women following a Western style of dress, using the same pattern-making magazines.
For example, back home in Perth, Australia, she wondered who wore an ornate blue 1840s dress spotted in a museum.
Later, she saw the same off-shoulder dress with ruffled sleeves in a similar blue fabric, this time in Missouri.
And the dress also turned up in upstate New York, this time in pink.
There may be differences in things like fabric, embellishments and the lining.
The lining tells a story, too, Eluwawalage says. In many cases, the lining of a piece of clothing could be made from a produce bag, since fabric was limited and expensive.
“This is an upper-class (dress), and it has the proper lining,” she says while looking at a dress worn to Buchanan’s inaugural ball in 1857. LancasterHistory has the dress in its collection.
Museum staff also showed her the beaded dress worn by Buchanan’s niece Harriet Lane Johnston in the late 1880s or the early 1890s. Johnston acted as first lady during the presidency of her bachelor uncle.
The beaded dress was made by Charles Frederick Worth, an English designer who’s widely considered the the father of haute couture.
Eluwawalage pointed out the beading, the hand stitching, the bustle and all of the detail.
It’s the second most mesmerizing dress she’s found in her research.
“The first one is a beetle wing dress,” she says. “Beetle wings can be shiny, green iridescent. The silhouette is similar to the one we saw before, but that particular one had thousands of beetle wings.”
Eluwawalage said she has seen dresses similar to Johnston’s beaded gown, but they were shorter. This one was full-length and heavy with beads.
“Hearing (Eluwawalage’s) reaction to it really made me aware of how special it is,” says Pyle, assistant curator. “To me, it was, ‘Oh, this is gorgeous,’ but when Demi was breathtaken by it, I was like, ‘Oh, this is more than just gorgeous. This is pretty special.’ ”
After a year exploring Pennsylvania’s costume history, Eluwawalage realized it takes a few years for new styles to be adopted here.
She’s also uncovered a lot of intricate embroidery and more fine cotton muslin dresses than she’s ever seen.
While muslin is now often used as cheap fabric, in the past cotton was a luxury item to be embroidered and embellished.
“I’ve found beautiful, beautiful wedding dresses made out of muslin,” Eluwawalage says. “That is intriguing to me. I’ve never seen that many cotton dresses in one place, worn at the same time. Perhaps it is because of the climate.”
Her research continues, and what’s in your closets (or attics) can help.Read more at:formal dresses
