FRANCES CLEVELAND.  Piece of White House dress personally owned and worn by Frances Cleveland, the First Lady of the 22nd and 24th President Grover Cleveland.  The fabric contains a maroon decorative design, measures 1.75” by 1.0”, accompanied with a certificate of authenticity from the world’s leading historical relics company University Archives, and was previously attached to and is accompanied with a handwritten note of provenance from the time period: “Piece of Mrs. Cleveland’s reception dress when she was in the White House.”

PIECE OF WHITE HOUSE DRESS PERSONALLY OWNED AND WORN BY FRANCES CLEVELAND, THE FIRST LADY OF THE 22ND AND 24TH PRESIDENT GROVER CLEVELAND

This dress fragment dates from after the June 1886 marriage of 49 year old President Grover Cleveland (1837-1908) to his 21 year old ward, Frances Cleveland (1864-1947).  Cleveland is the only US President to have served non-consecutive presidential terms, the first between 1885 to 1889 and the second between 1893 to 1897. Accustomed as they were to a bachelor president during the first half of his first term, the young First Lady immediately enchanted the public.  Frances was universally recognized as a beauty. She had dark blue eyes and always styled her dark hair in a coiffure that would later be called “a la Cleveland” with her curls in the front and trimmed hair at the nape. Her impeccable sartorial sense combined with opportunity, a 9 month long Grand Tour before her wedding, to provide her with a trousseau of French couture made by such designers as Charles Frederick Worth.

ACCOMPANIED WITH A HANDWRITTEN NOTE OF PROVENANCE FROM THE TIME PERIOD AND A CERTIFICATE OF AUTHENTICITY FROM UNIVERSITY ARCHIVES, THE WORLD’S LEADING HISTORICAL RELICS COMPANY

Mrs. Cleveland admired Worth’s aesthetic, lighter colored clothing that experimented with texture often adorned with any or all of that era’s frippery, which included beads, sequins, rhinestones, tassels, ribbon, fringe, feathers, fur, berries, and flowers.  The First Lady had a huge wardrobe of interchangeable skirts and blouses made by dressmakers from New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington. She gained some notoriety for wearing off-the-shoulder or low cut gowns. Frances soon became a style trendsetter and her popularity only increased when her image was ubiquitously used without her permission to advertise products and services of the day.  It is alleged that, after Washington journalists invented a news story that Mrs. Cleveland had stopped wearing dress bustles, demand for them fell precipitously among ladies au courant. The extroverted First Lady hosted two White House receptions a week during the social season, one scheduled on Saturdays so that working women could attend. She probably wore a dress matching this piece of dress on one of those occasions.