Small Ceremony · Hand-Smocked Dress, Jam & Jeremy, AU 3
Fine cotton lawn · hand-smocked bodice · contrast Peter Pan collar · full skirt over sewn-in petticoat · Jam and Jeremy · AU 3, approx 3 years
Fine cotton lawn in grey scattered with coral flowers, pulled in at the bodice by hand-smocking and finished at the throat with a contrast Peter Pan collar. When you ease it over the shoulders and the smocking gives and springs back, that is what you are feeling: the accumulated patience of however many hours it took someone to make this.
Jam and Jeremy, a children's label whose smocked pieces turn up rarely and are always worth finding. The smocking here is the slow, devotional kind: each pleat gathered and held by a row of embroidery, each row worked by hand, the whole bodice assembled one counted stitch at a time. The print is dense and small-floral in the manner that reads close to Liberty. The skirt falls full and soft over a sewn-in white petticoat, and the contrast collar sits flat and bright against the grey ground. A piece made with care and every stitch of that care is visible.
An exceptional small dress.
Care
Hand wash cool and dry flat in the shade. Press the skirt and collar with a cool iron. Steam the smocked panel gently from the wrong side: never press it flat or the gathers will not recover.
More on looking after vintage pieces in our care guide.
Size
Measured flat: length 60cm, smocked bodice 25cm (stretches to 32cm), skirt length 37cm, skirt hem 80cm. Fits approximately AU 3, around 3 years.
Our size guide explains how vintage sizing is read here.
Condition
Very good. The smocking is even and intact, the Peter Pan collar bright. The full skirt sits well.
Our condition lexicon explains the grades we use.
Before it reaches you
Someone loved this before you did, and I try to honour that properly. Each piece is hand washed, or cleaned in the way that the fabric permits, then steamed until it softens and straightens and feels newly attended to. Wherever a button was missing, it has been replaced with a vintage one from my long-kept collection. Wherever a hem had given way, I fix it by hand. By the time it leaves this room it is genuinely clean, pressed, whole, and looked over one final time before I let myself believe it is ready. Not restored. Not made new. Just returned to a state where it can be loved again, by someone who was not there the first time.
Smocking is patience made visible: every pleat counted and held, so this bodice is really a small ledger of somebody's evening hours, kept in embroidery instead of ink. Ease it on and the gathers give and spring back, handing a little of that patience over to whoever is wearing it, which is roughly what a ceremony is for. The coral flowers scattered on grey behave themselves until dusk, when they are said to lean very slightly toward any candle in the room. It was made for one small solemn occasion and has been ready for it, collar flat and bright, ever since.