dragonsspire:fashionsfromhistory:DressHouse of Worth1907-1909Manchester City Galleries@vinceaddams w
dragonsspire:fashionsfromhistory:DressHouse of Worth1907-1909Manchester City Galleries@vinceaddams what is it if not arsenic? I’m really curious! I immediately thought it was arsenic! The whole “arsenic green” thing is blown WAY out of proportion! Scheele’s Green was invented in 1775 and was popular in the late 18th and early 19th century, but it wasn’t a dye, it was a pigment used for painting leather and paper and stuff like that. And while it could be used on some fabrics, it wasn’t suitable for dyeing silk.There were a lot of different synthetic dyes, and natural dyes, and some had arsenic in varying amounts and some didn’t. According to this post “A report done in the 1890s revealed that about 20% of dress goods (fabrics for clothing) contained more than 3mg of arsenic per meter.” so I imagine by 1907-09 it would be even less, and it also says “most reports of people becoming ill because of fabric and papers are associated with deep blue and red colours, not green.” And even if an extant dress is tested and found to contain arsenic it could easily be contamination from other sources, like how the author of the first post I linked to has worked for “museums that had entire historical collections that had been treated with arsenic in the 19th and early 20th century to protect them from insect and rodent damage. Every dress in those collections would probably test positive for arsenic.”So this dress probably doesn’t have arsenic in it, and if it does it’s probably not much, and nothing to do with it being green! -- source link
#extant garments#1900's#20th century#dye#arsenic