{"product_id":"petal-hour-handmade-1910s-20s-pintucked-cotton-lawn-baby-gown","title":"Petal Hour · Handmade 1910s-20s Pintucked Cotton Lawn Baby Gown","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cem\u003eCotton lawn · pintucked yoke · hand-worked dot embroidery · scalloped sleeve edges · handmade, no label · 1910s-20s · 43cm length flat · fits newborn to six months · good to very good\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLift this gown and it barely registers, the kind of featherweight that only very fine, very old cotton achieves. Tiny raised dots scatter across the yoke, each one worked by a needle rather than printed, close enough together that the fabric seems to hold its own small weather.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThere is no label, no tag, nothing stitched in to name a maker, and that absence is its own kind of evidence. Infant wear of this calibre in the 1910s and 1920s was rarely bought ready made; it was sewn at home or by a local seamstress, one gown at a time, for one particular baby. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe fabric itself is a version of what dressmakers called dotted Swiss, a sheer cotton first woven by hand in St Gallen in the eighteenth century and, by the early twentieth, a favourite for christening and day gowns in exactly this kind of soft pastel. The loose A-line body, gathered rather than fitted, sits comfortably in that same window, echoing the drop-waisted ease that was moving through women's and children's dress alike in these years. She is a gown of the 1910s-20s, made by a hand that is now anonymous, for a baby who is more anonymous still.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLook closely at the front and four rows of pintucks flank a placket of small glass buttons, all original, all still working. The sleeves end in a narrow scalloped edge, picot-like, sewn by hand rather than pinked by machine. The hem is turned with a slim rolled finish rather than bound, and along one side, above the fold near the hem, a small patch of lawn has been mended, a repair, done with care rather than urgency. The neckline, gathered onto what was once a finished edge, has softened and frayed a little with the decades, the raw thread now part of the gown's surface rather than a flaw hiding beneath it.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"caitiedid","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44164586274950,"sku":null,"price":130.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0657\/5960\/8966\/files\/DSC_3431_copy.jpg?v=1784190125","url":"https:\/\/checkout.caitiedid.shop\/products\/petal-hour-handmade-1910s-20s-pintucked-cotton-lawn-baby-gown","provider":"caitiedid","version":"1.0","type":"link"}