Dress

On the basis of its distinctive yellow and red woven material, this dress is believed to have originated in Tuvalu. This colour combination is well-documented in other examples of weaving from this area. It is a style of dress known as a 'Mother Hubbard' and was introduced to the Pacific by nineteenth century missionaries who came with their European ideas of modesty.

Materials
The dress is made from yellow and red pandanus leaf matting, which is largely machine sewn. It has a deep yoke of fairly thick strips of yellow and red pandanus leaf, with a round neck and centre back opening. Most of the rest of the dress is made from a much finer, predominantly red mat with a thin yellow diamond pattern. The three-quarter length sleeves end in a fringe of what appears to be hibiscus bast fibre. The body is pleated from the yoke and has a 'flounce' and a fringe at the base. The flounce is a slightly pleated extension to the body of the dress made from a slightly coarser mat and in a different pattern (thick red and thinner yellow vertical stripes). The fringe consists of broad vertical leaf strips, two or three red and yellow alternating, and is machine stitched in white thread. There is European cloth facing on the sleeve edge, neck, and opening.

Significance
This dress is a significant example of how Pacific peoples have used local materials to make introduced forms of clothing. It is related to a matching suit jacket and hat in the collections that have been made in a similar way. Items such as this dress remind us that Pacific peoples often responded creatively to and actively appropriated new material culture and ideas.