A closer look at a Victorian cape embellished with goldwork embroidery

Marta's collection presents a beautiful Victorian cover. This was one of four covers in the collection. I recently presented one of them and I estimate that it is like the other one from the 1895s. This one resembles the one that the Met has in its collection. It shows this gold stitch, an old art form, in which metal threads are used to create decorative patterns on fabric. In this technique, metal threads are often attached to the fabric with a core material with another thread, which is called stitching. Here is a close-up of it. I'll show you more of it later. I thought I'd give you a little example. I've never done this kind of stitching before. It differs from normal stitching, because the metal threads are not threaded into the fabric, but placed on the fabric, which gives them their maximum shine. I don't have the right materials for this pattern, but I use a piece of metal rubber band for it. This gives an idea of how it would work. You put the gold thread on the fabric, then take another piece of thread and attach it with small stitches. This is called stitching. I'm making another little pattern here, in which the thread is shaped into a loop. Each small loop and each part of the pattern is fixed with another thread. You can imagine how long that must have taken. This is still done in the theater, in costumes, films, and also in church garments and so on. This ancient technique also has a long tradition in the beautiful stitching. Here is a picture of the extensive cover, on which the beautiful patterns can be seen. The cover is fed with silk, which is in quite good condition, and is held together with a single ball closure. Here is a small close-up of it. You can see that it is a kind of knotted, woven ball. And at the end there is a small, red glass bead. Here are a few more close-ups of the gold stitching on this cover. Look at all these little, tiny stitches, which were all made by hand. Oh, a beautiful craftsmanship was incorporated into this piece of clothing. What a precision! It is simply a joy to see and look at it up close. Covers have always been part of fashion throughout history, and this Victorian copy is an absolutely breathtaking, beautiful copy. I enjoyed learning something about gold stitching, and I am grateful to the person who created this beautiful piece of clothing 130 years ago.