The Electric Light dress was a masquerade gown made of gold and silver thread that was designed by Charles Frederick Worth for Alice Claypoole Vanderbilt. It was made for a masquerade ball that was held in New York City on March 26, 1883. The ball was hosted by Alice Vanderbilt's sister-in-law, Alva Vanderbilt, as a housewarming party for Alva and William K. Vanderbilt's new mansion at 660 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan.
The dress was made of yellow satin, decorated with glass pearls and beads in a lightning-bolt pattern. A built-in battery lit a light bulb she carried, which she could raise over her head like the Statue of Liberty.
This dress was one of several spectacular gowns that served to make the event the official start of Alva Vanderbilt's role as a leading socialite in New York. The dress is preserved at the Museum of the City of New York, having been donated in 1951 by Vanderbilt's youngest daughter Gladys, Countess Laszlo Szechenyi.
See also
References
- Soth, Amelia (2022-05-26). "Electrical Fashions". JSTOR Daily. Retrieved 2022-05-27.
- "MCNY Collections Portal". collections.mcny.org. Retrieved 2022-05-27.
- "Vanderbilt Ball | Museum of the City of New York". www.mcny.org. Retrieved 2022-05-27.
- Page 192 Archived 2022-10-31 at the Wayback Machine of the book The Vanderbilts and the Story of Their Fortune, by William Augustus Croffut, 1886
- "How a costume ball changed New York elite society". 6 August 2013. Archived from the original on 2016-02-06. Retrieved 2016-02-05.
External links
Media related to Electric Light dress at Wikimedia Commons- Electric Light dress at the Museum of the City of New York website
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