Electric Light dress
The Electric Light dress was a masquerade gown made of gold and silver thread designed by Charles Frederick Worth for Alice Vanderbilt for the 1883 masquerade ball thrown by her sister-in-law on the occasion of her housewarming for the new William K. Vanderbilt House on Fifth Avenue, NY. It was yellow satin decorated with glass pearls and beads in a lightning-bolt pattern. A built-in battery lit a light bulb she carried that she could raise over her head like the Statue of Liberty.
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Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt in her Electric Light dress
This dress was only one of several spectacular gowns that served to make the event the official start of Alva Vanderbilt's role as a leading socialite of New York.[1] The dress is preserved at Museum of the City of New York.[2]
References
- Page 192 of the book The Vanderbilts and the Story of Their Fortune, by William Augustus Croffut, 1886
- How a costume ball changed New York elite society
- Electric Light dress on Museum of the City of New York website
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