The Polonaise that Traveled Through Space & Time    You can well imagine my surprise: I'm sitting in a Tampa restaurant having lunch with my new friend, Lana McLaurin, when the conversation turns, as it often does when we are together, to vintage fashion. While I have been collecting and sewing vintage fashions for barely three years, Lana has been scouring antique stops and estate sales for over 25 years and has the most impressive collection of Victorian clothing I've yet to see. Lana is gazing into her salad as I mention that my first and most adored pattern is Past Patterns’ 1880’s Polonaise and Walking Skirt. She calmly looks up and says, “You know I have the original.”  I dropped my fork. A Better Understanding    In order for you to understand the extent of my delight, you must know a bit of history. When I was still a woman possessing only modern fashions and beginning a tea chapter of the now defunct Ladies’ Tea & Rhetoric Society, I was in need of a Victorian garment for my first event. I knew nothing of vintage fashion, but I was told by the founder of the organization not to worry as she had the most perfect piece. She would immediately send it along from New York, where she lived.    When the package arrived at my Oregon home, I thought there had been a mistake. The “package” was only a padded envelope. How could the most perfect garment be contained within this? Parachute silk, however, requires little space, and from the envelope poured a gorgeous skirt with tiered ruffles and a long tunic embellished with lace. With a happy heart and a skip in my step I retired to my room to put on what surely had been made for a princess.    I was quickly deflated. Never would the tunic close over the front of me! Hearing my very dear neighbor, Cheryl Halter, knocking, I ran to the front door, threw it open, and cried out, “It's here, but it doesn’t fit!”    With what I first took for a look of sympathy, she said, “Turn around and let me see.” She quickly brightened as I performed a sad pirouette. “Well” she said, “I'm sure it'll fit me!”    The polonaise fit her perfectly, and while Cheryl spun in graceful circles around my living room, I immediately called Past Patterns.    In the end, I made myself a copy in brown and coffee colored silk, and I helped Cheryl stitch one for herself of sage green and black silk. And the copy from New York? Before making its 3000-mile journey home from Portland, it traveled to Bend, Oregon where Dawnya Sasse of Start A Tea Business wore it for her first event. Revival and Dolly Varden    The polonaise is defined as a tight fitting tunic bodice ending half to three fourths of the distance from the skirt bottom. Drapery puffs, called panniers, are formed by drawing up the fabric on each side and in the back. While a variety of fabrics were used for both summer and winter, the polonaise was considered most fashionable when made of a fabric differing in shade from that of the accompanying skirt.    First popular in the 1700’s, the polonaise experienced widespread revival 100 years later. The 1871 death of Charles Dickens, and the subsequent auction of his belongings, directly attributed to the popularity of a look, called the Dolly Varden look, that created the revival which continued, with distinct modifications, through the end of the 1880’s.    Dickens created the character of Dolly Varden for his novel, Barnaby Rudge, serialized in 1841’s Household Words. Although the novel itself is now often forgotten, Dolly Varden has never been. A beautiful, spoiled, and coquettish character fond of colorful clothing, Dolly was quite popular with Victorian readers. The Dolly Varden look was inspired by her polonaise of green chintz and pink polka dots worn over a bright silk petticoat. Originally a summer look designed for wear with a bustle, it included the described fabric and a “little straw hat trimmed with cherry coloured ribbons, and worn the merest trifle on one side – just enough, in short, to make it the wickedest and most provoking head dress that ever a malicious milliner devised.”    Dickens himself was quite taken with the character he had created and, shortly before he died, he commissioned William Frith to paint a portrait of her. This painting was among the items auctioned at Dickens’ death and helped to create the furor over her. About Lana’s Polonaise    Lana chanced upon her polonaise in a Knoxville antique shop in the mid-1980’s. It had come from an estate sale and, although some of the trims were missing, it was in very good condition. Made of a cream colored cotton lawn, it is machine made, and finely made at that, as all seams are finished. The lace is hand stitched to the garment, and at the neckline it is sewn with quite large stitches spaced a half inch apart. This would have allowed for easy removal of the lace for laundering or for use on another garment.    Lana had first contacted Saundra Altman of Past Patterns in her search for a side saddle dress pattern. They began talking and it was decided that Lana would send Saundra the polonaise so that a pattern could be created.    When Saundra saw the polonaise, she immediately realized that it was most likely made between 1880 and 1882, a brief interlude in which skirts were not so full, bustles were not worn, and the original Dolly Varden look had faded into the past. The narrow drapery still created a bustle-like effect, but provided a softer and more fluid silhouette. The main clue lay in the direction of the folds creating the panniers. Panniers designed for wear with a bustle would be folded down rather than up so no sections of fabric would be protruding in odd directions. The panniers of this piece were folded up.  It would have been a day garment – perhaps for visiting. Without needing to disassemble it, Saundra Altman created one of her best selling patterns. If She Only Knew    As with most vintage pieces, information about the original owner is simply not to be had. In this case we only know that the woman was a bit tall, with a narrow back and fairly normal sized waist. We can easily imagine a young woman wanting to possess a beautiful polonaise and the excitement she must have felt when perhaps receiving it from the Butterick company. We also might wonder what she would think of her dress traveling through space and time, from one woman to another, across the country. My guess is she would be astounded, but pleased…..very pleased.