The FIDM Museum is in the final months of a major fundraising campaign to purchase the Helen Larson Historic Fashion Collection, a private collection of 1,200 historic garments and accessories from four centuries. Each Friday, this blog will present an exquisite piece from the Larson collection. 

Tea Gown
Paris
c. 1878
Helen Larson Historic Fashion Collection

This fringed, unboned gown was likely worn as a informal robe d'interieur or tea gown. The slim-fitting silhouette without a waist seam was known as the princess line, popularized by couturier Charles Frederick Worth in the early 1870s and named for Princess Alexandra of England. Revolutionary in construction, it quickly drove two-piece ensembles out of fashion. The dark green gabardine was embroidered to shape with silk floss before being cut and sewn in the trendy new style.

The gown has an unusually well-documented history. In 1928, it was given to the British costume historian Doris Langley Moore by her mother-in-law, as a family heirloom. It became the foundation of the vast collection of historic garments and textiles Moore assembled before her death in 1989. Actress Vivien Leigh modeled the gown in Moore's 1949 book The Woman in Fashion. Helen Larson had long known and admired the gown when she finally persuaded Moore to sell it to her for her own collection in 1964, for $70. Larson usually had her purchases shipped home from England by sea, yet she made a rare exception for this dress, hand-carrying it in her own luggage as she flew back to California. It has since been "adopted" for the FIDM Museum by Joady and Jerry Goreclick.

Helen Larson spent 50 years assembling her collection; now, it is in danger of being dispersed forever or absorbed into another private collection, inaccessible to students, researchers, and the general public. The FIDM Museum needs your help to save the Larson collection. You can make a contribution of any amount online or by mail, or join our #4for400 social media campaign. Donations are tax deductible; if your company has a matching gift program, your support will go even further. The FIDM Museum has until the end of 2015 to finish raising the necessary funds, so please join the campaign and help make fashion history.