Day dress

This brown silk dress, which has been woven a la disposition, was worn by Jane McPhail at her wedding in Scotland, before immigrating to New Zealand in the mid to late 1800s. Rather than investing in an impractical white dress, many women simply wore good quality dress on their wedding that they could wear again.

It is a typical example of the style of fashion during that time. It has broad sloping shoulders and wide pagoda sleeves which create the silhouette of the time. Beneath the pagoda sleeves Mrs McPhail would have worn detachable undersleeves as shown, to cover her forearms.