Villa on the Hill · 1970s Handmade Palladian Maxi Dress
Lightweight woven fabric · scenic novelty print · Palladian buildings and topiary on sage green · self-covered dome buttons in matching print · V-neckline · long blouson sleeves · button cuffs · full A-line maxi skirt · green zip back · handmade · 1970s · L 140cm flat · AU 10–12 · Very good
Every few centimetres another neoclassical building appears, seated on a low hill surrounded by rounded topiary trees in vivid green and golden amber, the landscape undulating in soft horizontal waves across the fabric. The print is a scenic novelty in the 1970s mode, detailed enough to read differently at arm's length versus up close, the buildings Palladian in their domes and colonnades. On a sage-green ground. In a full maxi. With self-covered dome buttons in the same print running from the V-neckline to the waist.
Scenic and architectural prints in fabric reached a particular peak in the early 1970s, when designers and textile houses on both sides of the Atlantic worked through a nostalgia for formal European landscape. This dress sits firmly in that tradition. It was made by hand, with careful attention to pattern matching at the seams and a considered approach to button placement.
The fabric is clean and has not faded. The dome buttons are all intact. The zipper at the centre back is green and functions correctly.
Material
Lightweight woven fabric (fibre content to confirm in hand)
Care
hand-wash carefully in cool water. Dry flat. Cool iron only, to protect the self-covered buttons.
More on looking after vintage pieces in our care guide.
Size
Measured flat: length 140cm, bust 45cm, waist 36cm, hip 56cm, and a hem sweeping 117cm across, which is what lets the maxi walk. Sleeves 61cm long and 18cm wide, and the V plunges 22cm to the top button. Fitted through the waist, she reads as an AU 10–12.
Our size guide explains how vintage sizing is read here.
Condition
very good. The fabric is bright and holds its colour. A ghost press at the hemline from storage.
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.
The topiary is trimmed by someone who has never once been seen doing it. Around dusk, lights come on in the little Palladian windows, one hill at a time, and nobody inside ever draws the curtains, because the view is you. The buttons are covered in the same landscape, which means somewhere on this dress there is a house with a button for a roof, and its tenants are very proud. Rent is payable in occasions. One building at a time.