I managed to miss the Horrockses exhibition at the Fashion & Textile Museum, so I was delighted to pick up a leaflet for Basildon Park and find out that I could see them a little closer to home. The dresses were beautifully displayed throughout the house, but the highlight for me was this lobster-print skirt – ideally placed in a room full of shells!
It was really nice to be able to get so close to so many of the dresses. I learned a lot about the intricacies of their construction just by being able to look at them in such detail. Most of the dresses featured an underarm gusset with tiny topstitching, which was something I hadn’t seen on any of my 1950s sewing patterns.
We also got to chat to the housekeeper, who was doing some conservation work on a pair of beautiful silk curtains. She’d had some very fine net dyed to the same colour as the fabric, and was carefully removing some older, more coarse netting and replacing it with the new. It was really interesting to be able to see the work in progress, and to compare it with some of the work around the house that had already been done.
The gardens and house were very beautiful, but mostly I just want to know where I can get hold of some lobster fabric!