Summer Gown - RETIRED

[shiniker]

This outfit was released in 2005 and retired in 2008.

Even in the warmth of a Williamsburg summer, Elizabeth stays cool in a satin gown with a quilted mock petticoat peeking out from under her skirt. Tie her satin-covered hat underneath her ponytail, and then help her step into her heeled slippers for an afternoon stroll in the colonial countryside.


I really ended up loving the color of this dress, it's a nice pastel green which looks great with the soft pink. The hat is my favorite part and is just adorable, and very well made. My biggest problem with this dress is the material used for that lovely green color. It's seems under par in the quality department and pretty much just feels cheap to me. Now I'm no expert on fabric, but that's just my take so here's the score. For design I give this an A, but for quality of the dress I would only give it a B-.

Shanna

[puglove]

I realy like the color and design of this outfit. The fabric seemed like quality fabric to me but that may just be me. I love the quilted peti coat/ underskirt part (please, forgive me for not being a colonial fashion expert). I love it when the historical outfits come with shoes and while simple I like the shoes that come with this set. I also addor the hat! I think the whole outfit is just toooo cute together and give it an A.

[heritage4]

Elizabeth's Summer Dress is really neat! The fabric is stiff, and I agree that it doesn't feel very high quality. But if you put that aside, you have a really great dress. It has a beautiful hat, and a pair of white shoes. It's a great dress, and worth every penny!

[mollygirl1944]

This one was also a late b-day present. It is very nice and looks good on Elizabeth. However, the fabric on mine snags easily. The dress has the less damaging velcro, and I have already snagged it a bit. I love everything else, though! It is a must if you have Elizabeth or like her collection.

[daughterofthedryad]

I don't have this outfit, but I have to say that although it's beautiful, it's completely historically un-accurate. Especially the eyelet lace. But it would make a wonderful gift for anyone who isn't interested in historical accuracy. (Which counts me out. )

[smurfette]

D

I didn't even have the dress out of the box before the material snagged. The light green color is sort of "off" to me and not very pleasing. I really just don't understand the hat at all. It looked like a flying saucer on my doll's head.

The only positive thing about this ensemble is that at least I didn't pay full price.

[libbysey]

Dec 11, 2008 21:25:37 GMT -5 smurfette said:

D

I didn't even have the dress out of the box before the material snagged. The light green color is sort of "off" to me and not very pleasing. I really just don't understand the hat at all. It looked like a flying saucer on my doll's head.

The only positive thing about this ensemble is that at least I didn't pay full price.

If you tie the ribbons behind her head beneath her ponytail, you can pull it a little tighter and it will bend down on the sides, therefore eliminating the "flying saucer" as you put it.

I really like this outfit A/A- (A+ if it had pocket slits.)

The stitching on the petticoat is a little bit darker green than the green of the outfit. Although I wasn't sure if I liked the bright green color at first, it actually looks very nice on PM Felicity (daughter doesn't have Elizabeth yet). The green of her eyes is complemented nicely by the green of the dress. There are three cute little buttons on the faux stomacher which I think are darling.

Unlike some other Mattel dresses, this is roomy enough for a PM body.

It does not come with socks. I do not believe that you are expected to dress Elizabeth without socks, however. You are expected to use her meet socks. I do not know why most of Samantha and Nellie's outfits come with tights or socks and Felicity and Elizabeth's do not (except for Felicity's spring gown, of course).

The shoes are nice, plain white and can be worn with many other outfits. I like when there is mix and match potential between outfits.

The hat is the same straw hat used for Felicity's summer and tea dresses, but is covered in white satin. It is cute, but lacks mix an match potential. Nothing matches the bright green accents.

I purchased this 2 days before it went on sale, so although I missed the sale bargain, I am glad that I got it before it was retired. I did get free shipping which softens the full-price blow a bit.

It really is much nicer in person than it looked in the catalog/online.

_{Mod edit to combine posts}

[glasshalffull]

This dress surprised me by making my Felicity look lovely and I'm so gad I bought it before it retired.
The hat is a beautiful bonus.

[jamie1774]

I thought this outfit was beautiful in the catalogue. And it is a trully beautiful dress.
However the fabric was TOO CHEAP!!! The skirt was so short it exposes above the doll's ankles, which was a very much a no-no well into the early 2oth century. Also the skirt could not fit over Felicity's paniers. My next complaint is holed buttons were not used in the 18th century. Also I wish this dress had separate underskirt.
It is beautiful, but it fails the principle that american girl set itself up as.
Pleasant Rowland, why oh why, did you sell your company to Mattel?

[minniebelle]

Despite lack of historical accuracy, this is DD's favorite dress for Elizabeth. In her mind this whole outfit rates an A+ (after all, AG is trying to appeal to little girls). As a mom, I give the dress a
C because the material is fragile -frays and pulls-does not wear well for hard play,mainly due to the velcro. I just fixed the whole back of the skirt, and changed the velcro for snaps. Wish I had taken the velcro off earlier before the skirt got so pulled.

[zeemeems]

Looks like some more images wouldn't hurt! I'm not sure if this color would have appeared naturally in the 18th century...but I liked the quilted petticoat and the hat. The green fabric has dots, and is a little sheer. It has a synthetic feel to it.

[libbysey]

I will add close-up pics of the hat since someone had requested them:

Jul 5, 2010 18:36:37 GMT -5 ladoyle said:

Thanks so much Lindsey! Those are great pictures, but I do have a question. I'm trying to figure out how to put this, but does the brim of the hat have 2 pieces of material, in other words, is the top, smooth piece of satin a different piece than the bottom (gathered) piece of the hat? Do you know what I mean??

I do know what you mean, but no, it is one piece of satin. It is smooth on top, then folded over the sides, and then gathered in the center. The fact that there is a lot of fabric coming together to one central point necessitates the gathers.

If you make your piece of satin with twice the diameter of your hat, then lay your hat upside down and then gather it, you should make out okay. (Though you may want to hem the edge first.) This is actually a great project, because it really doesn't matter much what the straw hat looks like, since it is covered in satin anyway. Have fun and please post pictures of what you come up with, if you don't mind.

(edited to repost pics since picasa did their "upgrade" and pre-upgrade pics seem to no longer work)

[skukla]

Felicity has paired this dress with her Tea Lesson hat and her Summer Gown's Tapestry Shoes. E's Summer Gown feels just as synthetic as it looks, but the colour is clearly made for Felicity, so here it is at our house now.

[EofA]

Even in the warmth of a Williamsburg summer, Elizabeth stays cool in this outfit: A satin gown with a quilted mock petticoat that peeks out from under her skirt....A satin-covered hat to tie underneath her ponytail...Heeled slippers for an afternoon stroll in the colonial countryside



I've always been ambivalent about this dress from the standpoint of historical accuracy, which is so important to me. Usually I pass on an item if it doesn't make that cut, but I'm a sucker for a green dress and so this one is one of the few things I have that is probably more historically 'inspired' than period accurate.

In terms of historical accuracy, I can live with the color being unusual for its era but the trim and quilting are more problematic. As noted above, and so far as I've been able to learn to date, the eyelet trim is not accurate. Certainly whitework embroidery gained popularity in America in the late 18th century but did so after this era. Plus, that embroidery was far more delicate and not as, well, modern-looking as the trim on this dress is. I suspect AG was going for something like the trim on THIS dress, but didn't quite get there. I think the sleeve and bodice trim should have been either plain ruffles, gauze, or lace for fancy.



Quilted petticoats (colonial petticoats being skirts worn under open jackets or gowns, not underwear!) were certainly worn for both warmth and fashion like THIS one. But this item was marketed as a summer dress, and so I've always been puzzled why AG chose quilting for the petticoat. Imagine poor Elizabeth fainting "in the warmth of a Williamsburg summer!" I also wish that the dress came in two pieces, with the petticoat separate as it would have been in that era. AG moved toward making its colonial outfits all of one piece when the collection was revised in 2005, and historical accuracy was a casualty as a result.

Still, despite all that, I do like this outfit. The hat is especially appealing, representing the height of colonial fashion with its shallow, flat crown, wide brim, and fancy decorations. It was not uncommon for straw hats of well-to-do ladies to be entirely covered with fabric like this one is. Our Elizabeth ALWAYS wears a cap under it, as the ladies and girls in Williamsburg of the era would have done, and ties it at the nape of her neck.



Why AG made "heeled slippers for an afternoon stroll in the colonial countryside" is a mystery to me. If she's not fainting in her quilted petticoat, Elizabeth is likely to turn an ankle! Still, the slippers are dear, although we add to this outfit by making sure Elizabeth has her stockings on because she's far too well bred to be running around bare-ankled! AG did not sell separate stockings for its colonial girls when the collection expanded in 2005 and the expectation was that doll owners would use the original stockings the dolls came with for other outfits. This dress was marketed with Elizabeth wearing slippers sans socks, but no, that's not going to happen here. No problems with fitting the slippers over her socks, fortunately.



I've also had no problem fitting this dress over the panniers. It is shorter than I'd like it to be but I'm less bothered by that when Elizabeth is wearing her socks.

This dress was retired before the colonial collections were archived. It can still be found on the secondary market but collectors should be very careful about checking the quality. There are many non-AG knock-offs, plus the satin of the AG dress is terribly prone to snagging.

My grade overall is a B. The outfit loses points due to historical inaccuracies and the easily-damaged fabric of the dress.

[starwenn]

Like Skulka, I bought this as a summer outfit for Felicity. It really is a pretty dress - I especially love the cute bow. However, besides the historical inaccuracy with the lace and color, this dress has one big problem - that darn cheap fabric snags like crazy. My dress came from eBay, and it's snagged all over the place.

There's the shoes, too. As EofA pointed out, they're really rather silly for a "walk in the countryside." At the very least, they're nice and stiff and made from a decent fabric, and they fit very well, even over the historically accurate stockings (and on my Lissie's big PM feet).

By far the best reason to get this outfit is the hat. It's silky and smooth, and though it may not go with other outfits, it looks gorgeous on its own and with the dress.

The delicate fabric makes this iffy for very young girls, but for collectors who have Elizabeth or Felicity and aren't bothered by historical inaccuracy, this is a lovely summer dress that looks good on both dolls.