item details
1947
Overview
A gown of contrasts
This evening gown and matching jacket were designed by Dorville, an English ready-to-wear fashion house well regarded for its use of high-quality fabrics and fine tailoring. The ensemble comprises two different types of woollen fabric. The dress, which features a dramatic knife-pleated skirt, is made from super-light-weight worsted wool and the jacket from fine wool velour. Olive O'Neill was the designer behind the Dorville label, a brand of Rose & Blairman.
The luxurious amount of fabric in the gown’s pleated skirt, and the line of the jacket with its softly rounded shoulders, tapering shape, and flared hipline are all hallmarks of the ‘New Look’.Wool After Dark
The ensemble was sent to the New Zealand Wool Board by the International Wool Secretariat to be used in wool promotions, and was in the Wool Board's 'wardrobe', when Mary Annette Burgess took up her role as Promotions Officer in March1948.
Mary Annette used garments from the IWS to ‘educate, promote and elevate wool as the greatest of fibres’. She featured this ensemble in her first stage production for the Wool Board, 'Wool After Dark', along with garments by Worth, Baroque, Normal Hartnell, Peter Russell, Victor Stiebel and Mercia.