Charleston Dancing Beaded Flapper 1926

taupe / greige silk beaded tabard — This is an original 1920s evening flapper dress

•  Silhouette: straight shift, no waist seam, sleeveless scoop neck, just below the knee with 3 pointed godets / slits at the front hem. That's a dancing dress — the slits let the legs move for the Charleston.

•  Beading: all hand-sewn: is missing several beads as you can see in the images Ive priced with that in mind. Very pretty . It is a size small

○  all-over black glass bugle beads in a free-form meandering / soutache vine — very Art Deco

○  large stylized rosettes — 3 down the center front bodice and around the hem — made of royal blue sequins and blue bugle beads, edged with jet black seed beads and larger black bugles. In period terms that's described as the bodice applied with bugle beads to faux waist-line... beaded in a design of boteh motifs and flowerheads to a vertically beaded ground, applied with coloured sequins, colourless paste and faux seed pearls, with flowerheads to shaped hemline, circa 1920, some loss of beads 

This is chain-stitched through the silk — you can see the looped thread carrying the beads in macro shot. The dress with the low front points and heavy blue rosettes sits 1926-1927 evening.

1.  No zipper, no darts — you steped in. Weight of beads holds it straight.

2.  Glass beads,  — black bugles with a slight hematite shine, blue sequins are gelatin / early plastic that crazes. That's period.

3.  Tambour / stringing technique — the black vine is a continuous string of bugles couched down, not individually sewn.

The missing beads

Completely expected. Every dealer note reads the same: Areas of missing beads with some still attached to thread.

It's is losing beads where the silk has torn — you can see the white weft threads bare between the bugles in the macro. Don't pull loose threads.

Care:

•  Store flat, not hung — the beads will keep tearing the shoulders. Acid-free tissue in folds, in a dark box.

all sales final as found wearable. I had a lot of drop waist dresses over the years this one is on the smaller side small