Wedding dress

This dress was worn by Bertha Sidney at her wedding to Claude Redward in 1906.

This cream satin dress with net overlay exhibits the painstaking and intricate technique known as tambour lace embroidery. Introduced to the western world from China through France, the stitch is worked from the underside of the fabric using a tambour hook to catch the loop, creating a seamless chain-stitch. Tambour lace takes its name from the French world for drum, a reflection of the practice of stretching the net over a frame.