This is a dress in which to make an entrance. An exuberant combination of rep silk, velvet, black passement and lace in a warm, ruby red colour: stylish dresses in the mid-1890's were often great statement makers. This dress is lavish enough for a visit to the theatre, but also appropriate for a ball costume, for which some society ladies wanted to be as fashionably 'dressed-up' as possible. The boa-like decoration on the bodice is an extra eye-catcher, it is ingeniously created from the frayed silk used in both front panels. The breast panel fastens perfectly with the help of added pieces of stiff horse-hair. The square neckline, the two rosettes on the bodice and the central velvet skirt panel are links to historical costume. The original owner, a baroness or banker's wife from the donator Ernestine Henriette van Boetzelaer-Royaards' family, had the dress altered. The metres of silk which form the skirt are gathered together in decorative pleats at the centre of the back. Empty 'tunnels' in the lining of the skirt betray an earlier fashion silhouette: that of the queue de Paris or tournure, which reached its height after 1885.