Kathleen O'Reilly's Presentation Dress

BCIMS HP198663, RBCM 965.577.182.

Clothing Over Time

Kathleen O'Reilly's Presentation dress is now owned by the Royal British Columbia Museum. The dress is deteriorating from the course of time but the delicate beauty still remains. The material of the dress is satin, which was covered with a layer of netting and sequins. But the netting now only remains in a few small areas. The following picture shows the netting and sequins just above the front waist of the dress.

Other Details of the Presentation Dress

…"The going up to Dublin was quite an after thought when I came over here. I telegraphed to Scotter to send my white ball dress which is covered with sparkles & trimmed with Lilies of the Valley & a train. She sent the latter white, lined with delicate shade of green bows of ribbon. It was so young looking a girl of seventeen could have worn it." - Kathleen O'Reilly.

Virginia Careless, of the RBCM, wrote:

"Kathleen mentioned dresses left at her dressmaker's to be remade; her Presentation gown was such a dress, not a new one. Its alteration at least once after the Presentation is evident in the version of it that we now have in the collection."

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