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Dress

(c) Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, Deerfield MA. All rights reserved.
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This garment was made by two sisters as the going-away outfit for a third sister's wedding. Mary Schick Koch, a German immigrant, living in Greenfield received the garment as a going-away present after her union with Gottlieb Koch of Turners Falls in 1902. (Upon her marriage, the new bride moved three miles across the Connecticut River.) Rosina Matilda and Anna Katherine Schick, dress-makers in Greenfield and sisters of the bride, attempted to make the dress in the height of fashion for the early 20th century. Details such as the high neck, pouter-pigeon front, and gored skirt with center back pleating, provided the S-curve silhouette for Mary Koch, an important look at this time in fashion. The aesthetic of the sisters' creation, with a busy silk pattern overlayed with appliqué lace squares and black velvet, does not readily conform to our 21st century notions of clothing aesthetics.

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