Where is Alexandra's coronation dress?

[gogm]

Please post it...

[yolanda]

I would love to see your picture of the coronation dress Halinka, 

[Ally Kumari]

Just found this.... could it be?

[Lisa]

No, it's Maria Feodorovna's dress. Made in Russia, 1856, silver brocarde, silver embroderies.

Sarushka already posted it.I scanned the picture and delete the background myself for my master report.

[Ally Kumari]

Thank you Lisa.
But still it seems to me the dress Sarushka posted doesn´t look much like the one in the painting.

[Lisa]

Well, It is a painting!
And I saw the dress with by own eyes: it's indeed silver brocade embroidered with silver thread! I studied it for my report, I saw a photograph of the bill. Moreover, you could not see in detail the dress in the painting, exepct that it was silver! You could not judge only by this painting.
Here is another picture of the dress in the museum:

It's the same posted by Sarushka: look carefully at the embroideries designs...

[Ally Kumari]

OK I give up. It´s probably the missing buttons that concerned me....

[Lisa]

The front buttons are often fake buttons on Russian court dress: it was jewelry brooches (diamonds, pearls). You can clearly see it on the dress worn by Alix in 1906 for the Duma (the withe dress with golden embroideries).
http://www.freewebs.com/empress-alexandra/album2/website/images/104_png.jpg
http://www.freewebs.com/empress-alexandra/album2/website/images/105_jpg.jpg

[gogm]

No, it's Maria Feodorovna's dress. Made in Russia, 1856, silver brocarde, silver embroderies.

Is this Maria Feodorovna's dress or Maria Alexandrovna's dress? Alexandra Feodorovna's mantle appears to be in the background.


Sarushka already posted it.I scanned the picture and delete the background myself for my master report.

[Lisa]

This is the dress of Alexandra. This mantel was made in 1896 for the coronation.

[Yelena Aleksandrovna]

Can you post the photo of the silver dress again? It's really beautiful, thanks for the first pair
of photos :-)

[katmaxoz]

Just found this.... could it be?

This picture above is empress Marie Feodrovna's coronation dress. The embroidery design is different from Alexandra's dress and Marie was even more slender than Alexandra at her coronation. I saw Alexandra's coronation dress many years ago at an exhbiton and it really stuck in my mind how small Russians in general were in the period (I also saw another exhibition on russian dress at the same time & all those dresses were similar in size to N&A). One detail I vividly remember about Alexandra's dress was all the small pearls that were embrodered in among the silver fabric and embroidery. It was a detail that you never picked up in photos because so many pictures are overall shots and don't give you close ups of the embroidery work. 

These dresses were usually made so that the skirt sat seperate from the top of the dress which you put on seperatley and down the center from the brestbone to the floor ran a ribbon which you attached diamond buttons or broches.  The coronation dresses with their silver-gilt fabrics were very similar to the imperial wedding dresses (and these were famously made by madame Olga Bulbenkova in St Petersburg - I wouldn't be surprised if she made Alex's coronation dress too) and Romanov memoirs make it very clear how heavy these dresses were. It took skill to walk in them an not topple over with the train and they tended to leave horrible bruising on the shoulders from the sheer weight of the fabric and that's before you get to the tiaras which induced headaches and the diamonds scattered all over the place:) They look georgous, but I don't think I could wear one for long:)

The pictures below are of Alex's dress - if you look at them you should be able to see the difference from Marie's which has a kind of feathery design where alexandra's has swirling circles.

[Yelena Aleksandrovna]

Thank you  katmaxoz for the photos, they let to appreciate the details of the dress, is really beautiful
and elegant, she must looked very beautiful wearing it. Do you know who designed it?

[Twobsbob]

I saw the coronation dresses a few years ago, and was struck by how ridiculously small Minnie's waist was.  Obviously, she would have been tightly corseted, but it is still extremely small by today's standards.  Alexandra's dress didn't appear as unnaturally small around the waist.

[Yelena Aleksandrovna]

I saw the coronation dresses a few years ago, and was struck by how ridiculously small Minnie's waist was.  Obviously, she would have been tightly corseted, but it is still extremely small by today's standards.  Alexandra's dress didn't appear as unnaturally small around the waist.

Do you know the measures of Marie Feodorovna's waist?