Cash's Costume
These links take you to other dresses from Something old, Something new:
- Victorian dress
- Mrs Redhead's dress
- The Hinckley dress
- India dress
- Cash's costume
- Wedding ensemble
- Undocumented dress
- Whitakers dress
- Mrs Taylor's dress
- Maureen Jones' dress
- Susan Firth's dress
- Rita Brierley's dress
- Joan Schofield's dress
- Christine Connor's dress
- Bride's and bridesmaid's dresses
- Christine Thomas' dress
- Diane Price's dress
- Joan McGreevy's dress
This is one of only two wedding dresses in the exhibition with a label. Using the label makes chasing down the production and history of the dress an easier process.
This outfit has the name of where it was made on the fastening tape inside the bodice. It was produced by the costume department in Cash’s department store in Cork, Ireland.
The donor, Eileen Sherry is noted to have said that the outfit was worn by her mother for her wedding in the 1890s.
The style of the ensemble with a relatively plain bustle skirt and a highly embellished bodice is consistent with the 1890s. The ‘mutton leg’ sleeves let us refine the date slightly because this style was in fashion from 1890 – 1895.
During the 19th century Bolton’s population grew rapidly through an increased birth rate and migration to the town. The Irish had contributed to this growth, especially after the famine (1845 -1849).
The number of Irish born persons living in Lancashire was 192,000 in 1851. However, the wearer of this dress was not escaping rural poverty.
Her dress shows she must have come from a wealthy family because it is constructed from a complicated (and therefore expensive) fabric of three alternating vertical panels – probably cotton – in very different weaves. It is possible that this was woven especially for Cash’s department store.
Department stores - Cash’s of Cork
Department stores developed independently in many countries in the second half of the nineteenth century.
In England, the first department stores that opened were in the North – Bainbridge’s of Newcastle and Kendal, Milne and Faulkner of Manchester.
This is hardly surprising because the North was where the manufacturing took place. It was in Parisian department stores that the first lines of middle class ready-to-wear fashions were developed. Since the western world looked to Paris for their fashion, when they saw this development they followed suit.
Using the information on the label Cork Public Museum was able to supply some information about the maker of the dress. The department store that made this dress began as a small store founded by Mr Todd in Cork in 1830. It prospered and grew and was incorporated as a private trading company in 1877 as Cash and Company Ltd.
The name ‘Cash’ was derived from the first letter of each surname of the four men who incorporated the business. The department store supplied high quality furniture, drapery and up-market clothing and was considered the best in the city. In 1997 the store was bought by the Brown Thomas Group and is now known as Brown Thomas.
