Court dress

This beautiful dress, on loan from the Fashion Museum Bath, is recorded as having been worn at court in the 1760s. 

The Bath mantua is made of cream silk and the surface of both the gown and petticoat are covered with embroidery of the very highest quality. Queen Charlotte tried to encourage a type of gown called the grand habit to be adopted more widely at the English court in the 1760s but most English women chose to wear either a mantua or the sacque, both of which were less formal.