{"meta":{"version":"2.1","_links":{"self":{"href":"https://api.vam.ac.uk/v2/object/O1779720"},"collection_page":{"href":"https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1779720/"}},"images":{"_primary_thumbnail":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2025PD1709/full/!100,100/0/default.jpg","_iiif_image":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2025PD1709/","_alt_iiif_image":[],"imageResolution":"high","_images_meta":[{"assetRef":"2025PD1709","copyright":"© Victoria & Albert Museum","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2025PD1708","copyright":"© Victoria & Albert Museum","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2025PD1712","copyright":"© Victoria & Albert Museum","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2025PD1713","copyright":"© Victoria & Albert Museum","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2025PD1714","copyright":"© Victoria & Albert Museum","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2025PD1715","copyright":"© Victoria & Albert Museum","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2025PD1716","copyright":"© Victoria & Albert Museum","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2025PD1717","copyright":"© Victoria & Albert Museum","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2025PD1719","copyright":"© Victoria & Albert Museum","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2025PD1718","copyright":"© Victoria & Albert Museum","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2025PD1720","copyright":"© Victoria & Albert Museum","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2025PD1721","copyright":"© Victoria & Albert Museum","sensitiveImage":false}]},"see_also":{"_iiif_pres":"https://iiif.vam.ac.uk/collections/O1779720/manifest.json","_alt_iiif_pres":[]}},"record":{"systemNumber":"O1779720","accessionNumber":"T.62:1&2-2024","objectType":"Evening dress","titles":[],"summaryDescription":"In nineteenth-century Britain the social pressure to buy new black clothes in up-to-date styles during periods of mourning for a public figure or family member or friend was a significant force in consumerism and in the development of department stores. Mourning dress helped to shape shopping habits, build brands and finance monumental urban architecture that survives today.\n\r\nThis sophisticated evening dress is a rare example of a store-labelled black silk evening dress for mourning, from a period when fashionable trimmings were extremely elaborate and delicate.  Although it is not known for whom Maud Riley (1847-1916) wore the dress (just possibly following Queen Victoria’s death in 1901), it shows a high degree of embellishment and fashionability rather than the plain, unflattering styles worn in the first stages of strict mourning, and suggests that by the late nineteenth century mourning codes were increasingly being interpreted to allow for the expression of status and taste. It is also likely that by this date women were sometimes choosing to wear black every day as a preferred fashion option.\n\r\nPeter Robinson (1804-74) was the son of a Yorkshire farmer who opened his first shop at 103 Oxford Street selling linen, haberdashery and hosiery in 1833. Responding to ever-growng demand for the  burgeoning variety of specialist fabrics available from industrialised manufacturers, Robinson expanded into drapery and dressmaking. By the 1860s he had taken over six connecting shops on Oxford Circus’s north-east corner and opened  a separate Court and General Mourning House known as ‘Black Peter Robinson’ at 256 to 262 Regent Street, to the south. Advertisements in publications such as  The Illustrated London News emphasised the firm’s good value, speed and quality of service, and the wide range of individualised options available including copies of expensive French designs. By 1902 the company Peter Robinson claimed to be ‘the largest drapery establishment in the kingdom’ (Manchester Courier, 13 March). It eventually grew into a chain of 39 department stores in cities across the country.\n\nThe firm  was acquired by Burton’s in 1946 but all  the Peter Robinson shops had been closed by the end of the 1970s  when many older high street brands folded or merged with bigger conglomerates. However, Peter Robinson’s Top Shop department, catering for the thriving youth market, had opened at the Sheffield branch in 1964 and the Oxford Circus site later became Top Shop’s flagship store. Topshop (as it was rebranded) became Britain’s most best-known,  international high-street brand, from the 1990s at the forefront of retail experimentation with designer and celebrity collaborations. As part of Philip Green’s Arcadia group (as the Burton group became) which entered administration in 2019, after nearly 60 years of trading, all Topshops closed and the brand was sold to online retailer ASOS. The grade II-listed Oxford Circus Peter Robinson building is currently (2025) IKEA's central London store. ","physicalDescription":"An evening or dinner dress consisting of a bodice and skirt, black silk with pleated silk ruffles and sequinned machine-made lace trimmings, c.1900. The bodice is made of black pin-tucked silk, over a black silk taffeta lining, with substantial and structural trimmings. Around the neckline there is a border of silk organza forming leaf-shaped puffs in pairs, over a border of machine lace embroidered with tiny round beads, and another deeper border of machine lace heavily embroidered with sequins, which are probably made of gelatine. At each shoulder and the centre front there is a pair of pendant pompoms made of silk chiffon which each has six leaf shaped tassels hanging from silk cord. There is a double row of ruffled silk ribbon applied horizontally in a meandering line around the middle area of the bodice. The lower edge is covered with a draped band or sash of wide black silk finished with a fixed bow, which fastens with four hooks and eyes. The bodice itself fastens to the proper left of the centre-front, with nine hooks and eyes. The internal waistband of heavy Petersham ribbon fastens with two hooks and eyes.\n\r\nThe elbow-length sleeves of black chiffon are overlaid with the sequined machine lace and trimmed with deep ‘engageant’ shaped ruffles of pleated chiffon.\r\n\nThere are 11 whalebones inserted into casings of black silk inside the taffeta base or lining of the  bodice, including at each closing edge. The upper edge around the neckline has a silk net edging, threaded with a velvet ribbon and in addition there are taffeta ribbon ties that close the internal neckline.\n\nThe matching skirt has a deep train and is made of black pin-tucked silk over a taffeta lining. There is a broad vertical panel of machine lace embroidered with sequins at the centre front, with narrower borders at each side seam. There are two pairs of applied curving bands of ruffled silk at hip level and above the hem, which continue around the front and back of the skirt. The hem of the skirt has three layers of ruffled frills. The taffeta lining is finished at the hem with a double flounce of the same taffeta, and a single pleated silk flounce on the outer edge. The skirt opens to the proper left of the centre back, the 27cm long opening has five hooks and clips and two hooks and eyes to fasten at the waist. The top edge of the skirt is bound with a silk tape and has a hanging loop at each side. There is a pocket inserted into the centre front seam of the lining above the hem and there are flat circular weights in the hem of the skirt. \r\n\n\r\n","artistMakerPerson":[],"artistMakerOrganisations":[{"name":{"text":"Peter Robinson Ltd.","id":"A28122"},"association":{"text":"maker","id":"x40240"},"note":""}],"artistMakerPeople":[],"materials":[{"text":"silk","id":"AAT243428"},{"text":"gelatin","id":"AAT11812"},{"text":"baleen","id":"AAT192974"}],"techniques":[{"text":"machine stitching","id":"x29587"},{"text":"hand sewing","id":"AAT257459"}],"materialsAndTechniques":"","categories":[{"text":"Clothing","id":"THES48975"},{"text":"Fashion","id":"THES48957"},{"text":"Womenswear","id":"THES49044"},{"text":"Evening wear","id":"THES48999"}],"styles":[],"collectionCode":{"text":"T&F","id":"THES48601"},"images":["2025PD1709","2025PD1708","2025PD1712","2025PD1713","2025PD1714","2025PD1715","2025PD1716","2025PD1717","2025PD1719","2025PD1718","2025PD1720","2025PD1721"],"imageResolution":"high","galleryLocations":[{"current":{"text":"SWST","id":"THES276098"},"free":"","case":"MB004","shelf":"BY002","box":"001"},{"current":{"text":"SWST","id":"THES276098"},"free":"","case":"MB004","shelf":"BY002","box":"001"}],"partTypes":[[{"text":"evening dress","id":"AAT243843"}],[{"text":"bodice","id":"AAT209874"}],[{"text":"evening dress","id":"AAT243843"}],[{"text":"skirt","id":"AAT209932"}]],"contentWarnings":[{"apprise":"","note":""}],"placesOfOrigin":[{"place":{"text":"London","id":"x28980"},"association":{"text":"made","id":"x28654"},"note":""}],"productionDates":[{"date":{"text":"ca. 1900","earliest":"1895-01-01","latest":"1904-12-31"},"association":{"text":"made","id":"x28654"},"note":""}],"associatedObjects":[],"creditLine":"Given by Catriona Kelly","dimensions":[{"dimension":"Circumference","value":"66","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"10/06/2024","earliest":"2024-06-10","latest":"2024-06-10"},"part":"waist tape, closed","note":""},{"dimension":"Length","value":"29.5","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"10/06/2024","earliest":"2024-06-10","latest":"2024-06-10"},"part":"centre-back, bodice","note":""},{"dimension":"Circumference","value":"74","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"10/06/2024","earliest":"2024-06-10","latest":"2024-06-10"},"part":"Waist, skirt","note":""},{"dimension":"Length","value":"105","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"10/06/2024","earliest":"2024-06-10","latest":"2024-06-10"},"part":"length, centre front, skirt","note":""},{"dimension":"Length","value":"148","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"10/06/2024","earliest":"2024-06-10","latest":"2024-06-10"},"part":"length, centre back, skirt","note":""}],"dimensionsNote":"","marksAndInscriptions":[{"content":"The internal waistband  is stamped with two Royal Warrant emblems and a crown, and the words SILK MERCER TO HISRH THE CROWN PRINCESS OF GERMANY and ‘Peter Robinson, MOURNING WAREHOUSE/REGENT ST.’ HISRH stands for Her Imperial Serene Royal Highness.\r\n","inscriber":{"name":{"text":"","id":""},"association":{"text":"","id":""}},"date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"description":"","interpretation":"","language":"","medium":"","method":"","position":"","script":"","translation":"","transliteration":"","type":"","note":""}],"objectHistory":"Maud Riley (1847-1916), with whom the dress has been associated in the donor’s family, was born in Quebec and married Moreton John Riley, a solicitor; in 1881 the couple were living at 76 Gloucester Terrace, Bayswater. In 1886 Maud divorced Moreton and married Cecil Curwen, a GP living in Windsor, according to the 1891 census. The dress’s donor, Catriona Kelly, is certain that it came to her family through her grandmother Helen Adams (1878-1961) who was brought up in the Riley/Curwen household with Maud Riley’s daughter Dorothy (1879-1970). Catriona Kelly remembers wearing the bodice with jeans to parties in the 1980s.","historicalContext":"","briefDescription":"An evening or dinner dress consisting of a bodice and skirt,  black silk with pleated silk ruffles and sequinned machine- made lace trimmings, c.1900. ","bibliographicReferences":[],"production":"","productionType":{"text":"","id":""},"contentDescription":"","contentPlaces":[],"associatedPlaces":[{"text":"London","id":"x28980"}],"contentPerson":[],"associatedPerson":[],"contentOrganisations":[],"associatedOrganisations":[],"contentPeople":[],"associatedPeople":[],"contentEvents":[],"associatedEvents":[],"contentOthers":[],"contentConcepts":[],"contentLiteraryRefs":[],"galleryLabels":[],"partNumbers":["T.62:1-2024","T.62:2-2024"],"accessionNumberNum":"62","accessionNumberPrefix":"T","accessionYear":2024,"otherNumbers":[],"copyNumber":"","aspects":["WHOLE"],"assets":[],"recordModificationDate":"2026-02-04","recordCreationDate":"2024-05-10","availableToBook":false}}