Dress #117: Charles James cocktail dress in brown Octopus made by the Wexler &

made by the Wexler & Abraham department store

The faint shimmer of handmade purple Japanese papers evokes the silk crepe of the underdress and silk velvet of the tabard

This hand-stitched blue Regency dress

it was made by royal tailors J

stitched by hand on 8x10 inch watercolour paper

Dress #117: Charles James cocktail dress in brown Octopus made by the Wexler &This hand stitched paper dress is based on a brown silk cocktail dress made by Charles James between 1952 1954 as a sample for New York ready to wear manufacturer Samuel Winston; the original is held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art (accession 2013. 341). That relationship eventually ended in a lawsuit for breach of contract, as James was convinced that Winston was stealing his designs for one of his other labels, without crediting James. James