Collections Online

Dolly bag, 1948. Part of June Tiley’s first 'going-out' outfit, with dress to match.

Pink bag made from synthetic satin printed with an overall floral design; material was originally a long evening dress with bodice, but later altered into a short dress and dolly type evening bag to match. The base of the bag is made from a circle of cardboard. The outer fabric was folded over the base and held in place by long lacing stitches which criss-cross over the inside. Next, the inner fabric was placed over the lacing and stitched around the circumference of the circle using small overcast stitches. The sides of the bag are made up of a double layer of fabric (meaning that the inside of the bag also has the front face of the fabric uppermost). There is a vertical seam both on out and inside and a seam on the inside running along the lower inner edge of the sides. The bottom edge of the sides has been tightly gathered around the bottom and is stitched on with small overcast stitches using white thread. The upper edge is 6cm wide. A channel has been machine stitched to the lower section of it, allowing for the insertion of a draw string. On the outside, the upper edge lies on top of the sides of the bag, while on the inside, the inner layer of the sides is placed over the upper edge and is hand-stitched in place using pale pink thread. One of the access holes for the draw string is finished with hand-stitched button hole stitches. The draw string itself is made from purple cotton rope (Z-twist). The ends are knotted together and the end of one of the two strigs on each side is secured with a few stitches of pink thread, presumably to stop it from unravelling.