Suit, green tweed, with hip-length jacket and ankle-length skirt, c. 1912, quarter view

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Creator

Unknown

Date Created

c. 1912

Subject

Costume; Clothing; Main garments; Suits

Description

c. 1912. Two-piece suit of pale green tweed with dark green slubs, with a hip-length fitted pleated jacket having notched lapels, a matching belt, and full-length fitted sleeves, and an ankle-length pleated flared skirt.

The jacket is made of five main pieces: two front panels, one center-back panel, and two peplum panels. Each front panel extends to the jacket hem only at the center, including the first of three vertical knife pleats flanking the center-front opening, and otherwise reaches only to the waist. The front panels wrap around the body to join the back at side-back seams. The back panel ends at the waist and has three knife pleats flanking its center for a total of six pleats that angle in from the shoulders toward the small of the back. All the pleats begin at the shoulder seam, aligning the front pleats with the back pleats, and all have their outer folds topstitched to keep them defined and crisp. A peplum panel is sewn to each front, emerging from beneath the first pleat, and is sewn to the waist seam all the way around to center back, matching all pleats so that they appear continuous to the jacket hem. The right and left peplum panels do not quite meet at center back; they are finished with a 10.2 cm / 4 in. wide strip of tweed folded to resemble a box pleat. A 4.1 cm / 1.625 in. wide belt made of the same fabric is sewn over the waist seam around the entire jacket except for the very front, where it is left free to allow for dressing and hooks closed.

The jacket collar is close to the throat and has small notched lapels. It has one interior breast pocket on each side, inaccessible from the outside. The jacket sleeves are full length and have slight fullness at the shoulder. They are slightly curved, made with two seams, and have a short plain cuff. The jacket opening overlaps the right over the left and has five buttons with a placket of concealed buttonholes. The silk lining is now badly disintegrated, revealing a structured interlining of canvas and padding.

The skirt is made with four gored panels, with the center-front and center-back panels pleated to match the jacket pleats above them. The pleats are topstitched to retain their shape for their full length and are also partially sewn down to the skirt with their fullness released at calf-height in front and just below the hips in back. The side panels are narrow and are fitted at the waist. The waistband is missing. The opening is at center back, hidden by the peplum, and secures with five hooks. The skirt is unlined. Machine-sewn and hand-sewn.

Extent

Bust: 91.54 cm / 36 in.
Waist: 71.1 cm / 28 in.
Shoulder: 12.7 cm / 5 in.
Sleeve: 62.2 cm / 24.5 in.
Hem (jacket): 157.5 cm / 62 in.
Hem (skirt): 327 cm / 128.75 in.
Length (jacket): 67.9 cm / 26.75 in.
Length (skirt): 106.7 cm / 42 in.

Provenance

Gift of Phillip Marston

Museum Number

113a,b

Publisher

University of New Hampshire Library

Medium

Tweed (wool), silk

Contributor

Astrida Schaeffer, photographer/curator

Date Digitized

5-31-2019

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

Comments

The Irma G. Bowen Historic Clothing Collection digital catalog was produced by the UNH Library Digital Collection Initiative, supported in part by a grant from the Mooseplate program and New Hampshire State Council on the Arts. Additional funding provided by the E. Ruth Buxton Stephenson Memorial Fund.
Photography copyright, Astrida Schaeffer.