Historical History added Broken Bride Bride Belgian Tape Lace Evening Gown labeled "Kate Ker Lane, Victoria House, 1 Kensington High St. W"

 Antique, Ca 1900's, Belgian Tape Lace bridal 1908 Gown.  Stunning tape lace gown with glass beading and embroidery.  Classic age distress. The glass beads are gold and white and are edged with tiny iridescent metal beads. It has some broken brides and arenas where the net ground has broken away from the tape. Lace from this period is cotton so stronger than silk.The sleeves and front are also decorated with large turquoise beads and one large gold jewel in the front.  The top of the dress has stays and a petersham that is labeled "Kate Ker Lane, Victoria House, 1 Kensington High St. W".  Top closed with hook and eye.  There is no underarm staining.  Gown has a train.  The inner lining is shattered.  I have not removed the lining . Minor repair needed to lace.  Under silk is COMPLETELY shattered needs to be removed but I love this as is total miss Havisham! Condition of the lace is overall has lace fatigue but this look is so cool I would wear like this. That's me. This is an exceptionally beautiful gown!This dress for a 110 year old dress heavy like this is not in poor care rather its the chemistry damage. Silk this old almost always does this and the overlay is actually in remarkable condition. Yellowing due to being stored at home.The patterns are crisp and legible.This could be restored if willing to put the time into it. Display.

 Measures: 

Shoulder to shoulder - 15",

 Bust - 30", 

Waist - 26", 

Length - 56",

 Length with train - 68

Price based on history this dress is large and the over lace is fixable basically needs lining read history below

All pieces are sold in vintage condition.  I do my best to accurately describe condition.  Please look over pictures carefully and ask questions.  All sales are final.  follow Boudoirqueen Instagram for more. Any overseas buyers must contact before purchase

Your label is a very famous one — and it explains the dress.

You are reading Madame Kate Ker-Lane, Victoria House, 1 Kensington High Street, W.

About this dress history

Catherine Ker-Lane née Rowles (bapt. 31 March 1861 – 14 July 1939) was one of London's top society dressmakers in the late Victorian and Edwardian era. 

Born in Bisley, Gloucestershire, to a miller turned farmer, she married as Kate Lapington, divorced for cruelty and desertion, and built herself into Madame Kate Ker-Lane's Court Dress Emporium in Kensington. 

Her speciality was exactly what this dress is : court presentation gowns, wedding gowns, and high-society evening dress in lace, satin, jet, bugle beads, and Brussels point lace.

A few examples from the newspapers:

 1922 — Lady (Robert) Balfour wore a Ker-Lane to court: "a black velvet gown, embroidered with a running design of thistles in cut jet and bugles: under-bodice of Brussels lace. jet train lined with satin beauté; ornaments. diamonds and sapphires"* 

 Another client the same month wore "Brussels point lace over pale gold tissue: train of white satin, embroidered in hand-worked lattice design of flowers in gold thread"* 

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What was Victoria House, 1 Kensington High Street?

Kensington High Street south side between Kensington Court and Wright's Lane is the oldest shopping frontage in Kensington. The stretch that includes Nos. 1A to 21 is a row of tiny, narrow-fronted houses built in the 1690s to serve servants and tradesmen to Kensington Palace. 

No. 1 itself, known as Victoria House, was one of those cramped early houses right at the gateway to the Palace. By the 1900s that whole row had become ultra-fashionable dressmakers and milliners because wealthy women living around Kensington Gardens wanted to be near the Palace.

The Survey of London records her there:

"Further east, Madame Kate Ker-Lane came under the eye of the factory inspectorate in 1905 for cramming in needlewomen and machinists at her dress-making establishment, No. 3 Kensington High Street. There were then forty-three employees on these narrow-fronted premises during the day, all women..." 

The inspector added: “This is a very dangerous case, there is hardly any light on the stairs and in some places no handrails,” 

She started at No. 3, which is right next to Victoria House No. 1, and later expanded. Her shop is also recorded at 29 Kensington High Street in the same period. Addresses shifted as she took over adjoining narrow houses — Victoria House at No. 1 was used as the prestige postal address for her Court Dress Emporium, because "Victoria House, Kensington High Street" sounded suitably royal for women being presented at Court. 

So in short:

Victoria House was not a factory — it was her boutique townhouse salon in one of the 1695 buildings at the east end of Kensington High Street, trading on its royal associations. Behind its small shopfront, dozens of needlewomen worked floor by floor making the lace and beaded gowns you see.

this dress — heavy cotton lace over weighted silk satin, with gold bugles, jet and that distinctive turquoise bead — is textbook Ker-Lane 1908-1912 work for a society wedding. If you have a label inside, it would likely say Madame Kate Ker-Lane, Court Dressmaker, Victoria House, Kensington.