The Electric Light dress was a masquerade gown made of gold and silver thread that was designed by Charles Frederick Worth for Alice Claypoole Vanderbilt. It was made for a masquerade ball that was held in New York City on March 26, 1883. The ball was hosted by Alice Vanderbilt's sister-in-law, Alva Vanderbilt, as a housewarming party for Alva and William K. Vanderbilt's new mansion at 660 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan.[1]
The dress was made of yellow satin, decorated with glass pearls and beads in a lightning-bolt pattern. A built-in battery lit a light bulb she carried, which she could raise over her head like the Statue of Liberty.[2][3]
This dress was one of several spectacular gowns that served to make the event the official start of Alva Vanderbilt's role as a leading socialite in New York.[4] The dress is preserved at the Museum of the City of New York,[5] having been donated in 1951 by Vanderbilt's youngest daughter Gladys, Countess Laszlo Szechenyi.
- ^ Soth, Amelia (2022-05-26). "Electrical Fashions". JSTOR Daily. Retrieved 2022-05-27.
- ^ "MCNY Collections Portal". collections.mcny.org. Retrieved 2022-05-27.
- ^ "Vanderbilt Ball | Museum of the City of New York". www.mcny.org. Retrieved 2022-05-27.
- ^ Page 192 Archived 2022-10-31 at the Wayback Machine 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". 6 August 2013. Archived from the original on 2016-02-06. Retrieved 2016-02-05.