Exquisite! I adore every single thing about this image. Lovely, lovely work!

Wonderful capture of this dress

Just astounding that this dress has survived all these years. wow!!

Just another reason to put things away in a cedar chest and forget about them for 100 years. The light and presentation of this image are superb. Fantastic work.

I remarked about the Clive posting that it looked like an expensive dress, and this one looks twice so. Such a powerful image, Tara, and also close enough to facilitate a reconstruction of part of the garment! Girls had tiny waists then, no wonder they passed out with 'the vapours' so often.

Superb capture Tara. God bless.

OH! It must have been a very lovely dress. The fabric is gorgeous. Old it is too, but not less beautiful.

lovely !! , but would not like to wear it

LOL! I just can remember among the many memories I cannot remember one about my Mrs on the second day, was dressed exactly as she was on the wedding day, we were metal heads, and we got married in metal gear, band tee's jeans and leathers :) I like the fact that this is relatively old, it is very comforting to know stuff from the old and far better world, is still around to remind us that this modern world isn't half as good.

Very beautiful capture of all the lovely details. :)

Lovely old dress, lighting and composition

Your way of making ordinary things look so special and intimate is well at work here; this is just lovely, and it also looks as though it was quite a substantial piece of clothing, quite heavy. I can't imagine a life where that would be considered normal! Beautiful capture and very thought-provoking!

Such wonderful lighting on this historic dress, Tara! You can almost feel the texture. It's easy to imagine the newlywed lady wearing this.

this is lovely

weaving, sewing, wear and clean, care over so many years, was it worth, - your picture is a real dedication! Denise said it in perfect words! great mood in this!

Andrea mentioned how girls had small waists then---yes, but they also wore corsets (and tight waisted clothes in general), and those things really constricted women. You probably know this, but women got injured from wearing them all the time, and some childbirth deaths---of the mothers---were attributed to the damage caused to internal organs, by corsets. They were dastardly when worn day in and day out---all to serve the "hourglass" shape considered 'feminine' for so many generations. The waist here is certainly tight, with the dress flaring out as dresses did in those days (tight in the waist, billowing out from there---again you know the old 'bustles' sometimes made of whale bone, that kept women's dresses flared out like massive umbrellas; and it makes us appreciate why the dresses of the 1920's were so radical, because they flattened all that 'billow' and let the body flow up and down naturally..."like a boy," as some said in the 20's, that was a big change to be sure). What a piece of history here. But as for the image, it's a mysterious capture, feeling like it's from another age, feeling like it's looking-in on the very private world of a woman from that time. A fine introspective job, Tara, in light, shadow and what you reveal and don't reveal (your crop plays a big role in that). The brocade is sewn-in in small patches, not predominant; like it's afterthought, something the wearer could enjoy but not get too distracted by. And the dress has deep folds, with a very heavy top---probably very warm because of all the fabric, but not easy to wear for very long. (And big formal buttons too!) Your light and crop suggest mysteries behind it, not only of age or who the woman was, but what was it like to be inside it, what was the world she came from, etc. A fine evocation of another age. A rich shadow-bathed shot, and a wonderful piece of history...

I'm not a dress dude but can appreciate well made embroidery.. Lovely light as well.. Rob