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Dressmaker   Listen
noun
Dressmaker  n.  A maker of gowns, or similar garments; a mantuamaker.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Dressmaker" Quotes from Famous Books



... to be judged by that. My clothes may express the dressmaker, but they don't express me. To begin with it's not my own choice that I wear them; they're imposed ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James

... blue brocaded satin is!" quoth Fanny, looking at one of Margaret's new gowns hanging in a closet. "Why didn't you wear it at the Watts' dinner yesterday? And your brown velvet—you've not had it on since it came from the dressmaker's." ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens

... was coming from Paris; she was staying with the Delacours until after the ball, so, as Cissy said, her way was nice and smooth and easy—very different indeed from theirs. They had to struggle with the inability and ignorance of a provincial dressmaker, working against time. At the last moment it became clear that their frocks could not be sent to Barbizon, that they would have to dress for the ball in Fontainebleau. But where! They would have to hire rooms at the hotel, and, having gone ...
— Celibates • George Moore

... Police," etc., I., 69 and 91. At Strasbourg a number of women of the lower class are imprisoned as "aristocrats and fanatics," with no other alleged motive. The following are their occupations: dressmaker, upholsteress, housewife, midwife, baker, wives of coffee-house keepers, tailors, potters and chimney-sweeps.—Ibid., II., 216. "Ursule Rath, servant to an emigre arrested for the purpose of knowing ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... after the death of her insane aunt obliged her to look for a home and a maintenance. As I am not telling her story, I will pass over the account of the efforts she made to be a schoolmistress, and the instruction she had as a dressmaker. She was in poor health (reduced by hunger) and in debt L3 to her uncle, and nervous and anxious, when she heard that a lady from the North, then visiting in the neighborhood, wanted just such a maid as Susan thought ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various

... Victoria out sometimes and dress her up," confessed Jane. "It isn't much fun all alone, but I like to see her sometimes. If you'd like to, Gertie, we'll have a doll sewing bee this afternoon and you can be Victoria's mother and Katie and I will be dressmaker's though I never could sew decently. Mother's about given ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie

... together. Why shut one's eyes to obvious deductions? You're so like an ostrich, Neville.' I said I'd rather be an ostrich than a ferret, eternally digging into other people's concerns,—and by the time we had got to that I thought it was far enough, so I had an engagement with my dressmaker." ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay

... neighbours who perhaps once a year drove miles to call or leave a card. She was an old woman sufficiently unattractive to find no difficulty in the way of limiting her acquaintances. The unprepossessing wardrobe she had gathered in the passing years was remade again and again by the village dressmaker. She wore dingy old silk gowns and appalling bonnets, and mantles dripping with rusty fringes and bugle beads, but these mitigated not in the least the unflinching arrogance of her bearing, or the simple, intolerant rudeness which she considered proper ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... I guess; the sort that takes on seven shades of purple about the second season. And it fits her like a damp tablecloth hung on a chair. Her runnin' mate is all in black, and you could tell by the puckered seams and the twisted sleeves that it was an outfit the village dressmaker had done ...
— Odd Numbers - Being Further Chronicles of Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford

... weather over for the present. Called at the Legation. M. very quiet and good and looking exquisite in dark blue silk from Sue's crack dressmaker. Enormously admired and very happy. Quite well. Took a few notes to-day on the Code. ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell

... the dressmaker's yesterday, I spent five minutes learning the Italian for the expression "This blouse bags; it sits in wrinkles between the shoulders." As this was the only criticism given in the little book, I imagined that Italian dressmakers erred in this special direction. ...
— Penelope's Postscripts • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... whom we specially cultivate, that is. I will stop in town a day or two to interview my dressmaker, and then go straight to Helmdale, our ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy

... expression of countenance, will generally be tastefully dressed; and the vulgar woman, with features correspondingly rude, will easily be seen through the inappropriate mask in which her milliner or dressmaker ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous

... Ligny's departure. But perturbing things were happening, within her and around her. In the street she was followed by a water-spaniel, which appealed and vanished suddenly. One morning when she was in bed her mother told her "I am going to the dressmaker's," and went out. Two or three minutes later Felicie saw her come back into the room as if she had forgotten something. But the apparition advanced without a look at her, without a word, without a sounds and disappeared ...
— A Mummer's Tale • Anatole France

... said. "I knew your father slightly. Countess, your maid is wandering in a desolate way about the corridor, looking for you, with some story of a dressmaker." ...
— The Slave of Silence • Fred M. White

... Jim. You know she would have broken any engagement to see you, had she known you were going to call to-day. She has only gone to the dressmaker's." ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon

... Mr. Cowl. "I found it myself, and not in the ditch. I remembered you had said that you had changed at the dressmaker's in the village and had left there an ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett

... year's gift, and the patterns were not opened twenty-four hours before a silk cape was cut out by one of them. I think I made a very impertinent request when I asked you to give yourself so much trouble. The poor woman for whom I wanted them is now a first-rate dressmaker—her drunken husband, who was her main misfortune, having taken himself off and not been ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter

... there was a dressmaker in the room, with an assistant, and servants brought a number of big bandboxes with lids covered with black oilcloth; and Angela's maid was there, too, and they tried one thing after another on her, ready-made garments for the first hours ...
— The White Sister • F. Marion Crawford

... unnoticed till the bill comes in. And while, of course, you claim from her the most ready sympathy in all your interests and enthusiasms, give her, once in a great while, say every year or so, a little genuine interest in the housekeeping trials or dressmaker grievances that meet her at ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various

... carry in the time of trouble; and but for her thoughtful presence of mind the whole house would have degenerated into a state of chaos. She wrote necessary letters, made arrangements for the sad offices which were all that could be rendered to her father now, interviewed the dressmaker, and ordered meals for the children. It was to her that the servants and tradespeople came for orders; it was she who kept her mother's room quiet, and nursed Nora, and provided necessary occupation for the awed ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... forgotten how to be magnificent. There are some illustrated articles in one of the magazines, giving photographs of the great historic country-houses of England. You should see the pictures of the interiors. The furniture and decorations are precisely what a Brixton dressmaker would buy, if she suddenly ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic

... Barbara, when she had finished her exercises in singing, washed fine laces. This was done entirely in secret. A certain Frau Lerch, who when a girl had served Barbara's dead mother as waiting maid, and now worked as a dressmaker for the most aristocratic women in Ratisbon, privately obtained this employment. It was partly from affection for the young lady whom she had tended when a child; but the largest portion of Barbara's earnings returned to her, for she cut for the former all ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... her only the society of her needle. The art of sewing, so far as men learn it, is well enough; that is, to enable a person to take the stitches, and, if necessary, to make her own garments in a strong manner; but the dressmaker should no more be a universal character than the carpenter. Suppose every man should feel it is his duty to do his own mechanical work of all kinds, would society be benefited? would the work be well done? Yet a woman is expected to know how to do all kinds of ...
— Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals • Maria Mitchell

... got up at eleven o'clock every morning, Olga Ivanovna played the piano or, if it were sunny, painted something in oils. Then between twelve and one she drove to her dressmaker's. As Dymov and she had very little money, only just enough, she and her dressmaker were often put to clever shifts to enable her to appear constantly in new dresses and make a sensation with them. Very often out of an old dyed dress, out of bits of tulle, lace, plush, ...
— The Wife and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... most everything," returned his mother. "But what she wants to do is to be a dressmaker. And Daddy has prevailed on Tim to let him send her to a trade school where she can learn to sew. After she has graduated, if she wishes, she can pay him back the money. Daddy had to arrange it that way because the Harritys are proud ...
— Sunny Boy in the Big City • Ramy Allison White

... of the day, the myriad nothings that you are bound to know, under penalty of being a nobody. Before very long the Baron also gave advice as to shopping, recommending Herbault for toques and Juliette for hats and bonnets; he added the address of a fashionable dressmaker to supersede Victorine. In short, he made the lady see the necessity of rubbing off Angouleme. Then he took his leave after a final ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac

... continued, "that he must order from a dressmaker at Amiens, whose address I will give him, the dinner dress and the tailor suit which is absolutely necessary, and in addition some good underwear. In fact, a whole outfit. Trust in me and you shall ...
— Nobody's Girl - (En Famille) • Hector Malot

... resuming the imperative, "I got this dress suit at a first-class tailor's—you go to a first-class dressmaker and get a gown to correspond with it. To correspond with my patent leathers, you get evening shoes at a first-class bootmaker's. To correspond with my overcoat, you get an evening cloak. Piece for piece, you must do just as I do. We'll be ...
— Skinner's Dress Suit • Henry Irving Dodge

... Blanchard, Leigh Hunt, William Howitt, and Samuel Lover. These essays, or rather letterpress descriptions, were written to the pictures, which were not drawn (as is generally supposed) in illustration of the text. The portraits are taken from almost every grade in life: from the dressmaker to the draper's assistant, and from the housekeeper to the hangman; the last, by the way, being perhaps the most characteristic sketch of the series. The best of these forty-three "pictures" is the one which faces the title-page, ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt

... travelled north. Thus did he first learn how much better than men women play a waiting game. In Paris they had again to pause for a day. Jon was grieved because it lasted two, owing to certain matters in connection with a dressmaker; as if his mother, who looked beautiful in anything, had any need of dresses! The happiest moment of his travel was that when he stepped ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... that the garden had another occupant; that at another table, not far from me, a vague and not very prosperous-looking woman in a shabby bonnet was sitting, with her reticule lying by her, also drinking tea and gazing at the after-glow of the sunset. An elderly spinster I thought her, a dressmaker perhaps, or a retired governess, one of those maiden ladies who live alone in quiet lodgings, and are fond of romantic fiction ...
— More Trivia • Logan Pearsall Smith

... melancholy) "Marchand d'habits! Avez-vous des habits a vendr'?" while from the distance arise the cries of the dealers in birdseed and artichokes. The spinning scene in "The Flying Dutchman," which reproduces a custom of vast antiquity, is replaced in "Louise" with a scene in the dressmaker's workshop, in which the chatter of the girls and the antics of the comdienne are borne up by the music of the orchestra, with the click-click of the sewing machines to make up for the melodious hum of Wagner's spinning wheels. Puccini's bohemians meet in front ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... health laws until people with different incomes and different tastes try to live together. In a small town where everybody keeps a cow and a pig, piggeries and stables offend no one; but when the doctor, the preacher, the dressmaker, the lawyer, and the leading merchant stop keeping pigs and cows, they begin to find other people's stables and piggeries offensive. The early laws against throwing garbage, fish heads, household refuse, offal, etc., on the main street were made by kings ...
— Civics and Health • William H. Allen

... love-affair to tell of here. Not that I was not waking up to that aspect of life in my middle teens I did, indeed, in various slightly informal ways scrape acquaintance with casual Wimblehurst girls; with a little dressmaker's apprentice I got upon shyly speaking terms, and a pupil teacher in the National School went further and was "talked about" in connection with me but I was not by any means touched by any reality of passion ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells

... not a photographer nor a dressmaker nor a coiffeur. I can't do anything with 'back hair' nor with ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James

... girls love to look nice. Mrs. Rankin, even, says that she'd give the world to get hold of a good dressmaker, and she's married. Do you know even Wana likes pretty things, and that's just what I'd like to talk to you about. You see, I've got twenty dollars saved, and I just thought I would get Wana a nice dress, ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum

... for all her household are clothed with scarlet" (marg., double garments). She looks after the health of other people as well as her own; she does not keep her maid sitting up night after night, or overwork her dressmaker. She is as considerate for the flyman waiting for her on a rainy night as she would be for her father's coachman and horses, remembering that the flyman is quite as liable to catch cold as the coachman, and has fewer facilities for ...
— Stray Thoughts for Girls • Lucy H. M. Soulsby

... we hoped would be a clue, and it is to them that poor Marie Laronde used to go to inquire whether there was any chance of her husband being released for a smaller sum than was at first demanded. They had heard of a dressmaker who employed a girl or woman named Laronde in the West End, so I hunted her up with rather sanguine expectations, but she turned out to be a girl of sixteen, dark instead of fair, and unmarried! But again I ask, mother, what news, for I see by your face that you have something to tell me. That ...
— The Middy and the Moors - An Algerine Story • R.M. Ballantyne

... was art. Even certain forms of Colonial mahogany were art, although he was not fond of them. And Natalie was—art. Even if she represented the creative instincts of her dressmaker and her milliner, and not her own—he did not like a Louis XV sofa the less that ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... parted her smooth black hair in the middle and fastened it in a knob at the back of her head. Her clothes were good and new, but some desolate dressmaker had contrived to invest them with an air of hopeless dowdiness. At her bosom she wore a great brooch, containing intertwined locks of a grandfather and grandmother long since defunct. Her mind was as drearily equipped ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke

... the length and formalities of the meal; to want to go out, or not to want to come in; or possibly the dining-room had been in use as a kite manufactory, or a juvenile artist's studio, or a doll's dressmaker's establishment, and we objected to make way for the roast meat and pudding. But on this occasion I took an interest in the dignities of the dinner-table, and examined the plates and dishes, and admired the old-fashioned forks and spoons, and puzzled over the entwined ...
— Mrs. Overtheway's Remembrances • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... the evening on which Lady Halifax followed it up—a Parisian modification of a design carried, out originally by the Sparta dressmaker, with a degree of hysteria, under Miss Bell's direction. She wore it with a touch of unusual color in her cheeks and, an added light in her dark eyes that gave a winsomeness to her beauty which it had ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)

... that it was difficult to squeeze in an occasional morning for shopping—necessary to go to the shops sometimes, or one would not know how many things one really wants—or for an indispensable interview with the dressmaker. Those mornings at the shops were hardly the least agreeable of Lesbia's hours. To a girl brought up in one perpetual tete-a-tete with green hill-sides and silvery watercourses, the West End shops were as gardens of Eden, as Aladdin Caves, as anything, everything that is ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... very filling after all, for I couldn't see but that Miss Amelia ate as much as any of us. For a few minutes every one was slow in speaking, then mother asked about cleaning the schoolhouse, Laddie had something to explain to father about corn mould, Sally and the dressmaker talked about pipings—not a bird—a new way to fold goods to make trimmings, and soon everything was going on the same as if the new teacher were not there. I noticed that she kept her head straight, and was not nearly so glib-tongued and ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter

... before her marriage, she met him. It was a few weeks after these brief unsatisfactory sentences had troubled the waters of her spirit. She had been out with her aunt for the purpose of selecting her wedding attire; and after a visit to the dressmaker's, was returning alone, her aunt wishing to make a few calls at places where Jessie did not care to go. She was crossing one of the public squares when the thought of Hendrickson came suddenly into her mind. Her eyes were cast down at the moment. Looking up, involuntarily, she paused, for within ...
— The Hand But Not the Heart - or, The Life-Trials of Jessie Loring • T. S. Arthur

... soon cease. When the Standard Household-Effect Company came down on the temporal-manly with a penalty for violation of the lease, the eternal-womanly would see the folly of her ways and stop; for the eternal-womanly is essentially economical, whatever we say about the dressmaker's bills; and the very futilities of putting away and taking out, that she now wears herself to a thread with, are founded ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... however little the Old Testament concerns itself with tailors, did it fail to mention the first of them. The line goes back to Adam, cross-legged under the Tree—the first tailor and the first customer together—companioned, pleasantly enough, by the first 'little dressmaker.' They made their clothes together, and made them alike—an impressive, beautiful symbol of the perfect harmony between the sexes that the world lost and is ...
— The Perfect Gentleman • Ralph Bergengren

... to find how many of the Pickwickian names were in common use. There was not a single Snodgrass, though there was one Winkel, and one "Winkle and Co." in St. Mary Axe. There was one Tupman, a Court dressmaker—no Nupkins, but some twenty Magnuses, and not a single Pickwick. There were, however, some ...
— Pickwickian Studies • Percy Fitzgerald

... can't get that much in my little lisle thread bank without spoiling the contour of that new gown effect I am going to be poured into. Clothes, well I should hope so, dear. When the true meaning of that effusion soaked into my system, the way I grabbed my hat and took it on the run for the dressmaker's was a caution ...
— The Sorrows of a Show Girl • Kenneth McGaffey

... they are; and they are happy in the right way. Papa, I was up there to-day, and I saw Jane Best, that little dressmaker Arthur spoke about, who had got broken down with work; Hazel has invited her to come there and rest out, ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner

... and whitewashed it. He was very good, better than ever I can repay. He cleaned out the little place for me. The pots and pans turned in well. And he lent me a few things till,—maybe—I could earn a bit, washin' or mendin' or sewin'; I'm a good dressmaker. Maybe I could ...
— Love of Brothers • Katharine Tynan

... been charmed with the sweetness of Josephine's character, but then he was not her husband, and it soon became apparent that the union was ill-assorted, and so it came to pass that marital relations were entirely broken off after the birth of Hortense, subsequently dressmaker's apprentice, Queen of Holland, and mother of Napoleon III. Alexandre had gone to Martinique, and it was there the news of his daughter's birth came to him. He knew before leaving France that his wife was enceinte, and expressed his ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman

... skirt," and the amount of cloth allowed was carefully prescribed. Women's desire to be in the mode was, however, too powerful for even Prussianism. Copies of French fashion magazines were smuggled in from Paris through Switzerland, passed from dressmaker to dressmaker, and house to house, and despite the military instructions and the leather shortage, wide skirts and high ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin

... Coesfeld. This sound so inflamed her secret desire to become a nun, and had so great an effect upon her, that she fainted away, and remained ill and weak for a long time after. When in her eighteenth year she was apprenticed at Coesfeld to a dressmaker, with whom she passed two years, and then returned to her parents. She asked to be received at the Convents of the Augustinians at Borken, of the Trappists at Darfeld, and of the Poor Clares at Munster; but her poverty, ...
— The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ • Anna Catherine Emmerich

... in the pictures, but as I read on I came to like those also, and I found that they were wholly satisfactory to the children. The picture of the thousand legger with all his shoes on is entrancing, and poor Mrs. Frog cutting out clothes because the dressmaker had made them for the children when they were still tadpoles. These books ought to come like an oasis in the desert ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton

... his eyes in a comical manner, for he did not fear Latin quotations. However, he declared himself very hard to please in that matter; he dreamed of an Egeria, a superior mind. What he did not tell them was, that a dressmaker's little errand-girl, with whom he had tried to converse as he left the law-school, had surveyed him from head to foot and threatened him ...
— A Romance of Youth, Complete • Francois Coppee

... you are settled in the business, and looking forward to making homes of your own with worthy young women. Joseph is going to college, which is a new thing in our family, but one I approve, seeing his faculty appears to lie that way. Ruth will make a first-rate dressmaker, I am told by those ...
— The Green Satin Gown • Laura E. Richards

... quite decidedly, at last, asking for the lace with which she at first intended renovating her old pink silk, "She must see Miss Allis first to know how much she wanted," and promising to return, she tripped over to Frankfort's fashionable dressmaker, whom she found surrounded with dresses ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes

... mourning was as correct and elegant as a fashionable dressmaker could make it; the very latest thing in grief. Mr. Wickham was far less sumptuous. Beyond the customary band on his hat and a pair of black gloves conspicuously new, he had apparently made little expenditure on ...
— The Land of Promise • D. Torbett

... been comparatively quiet. Mabel's dressmaker and my tailor have reaffirmed their neutrality, and we have promise of further support, if needed, from Uncle Robert. Thus, although the enemy appear to contemplate a new attack in the future, we ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 16, 1914 • Various

... pinnacle. She fringed her ball-dresses with diamonds, and covered them with lace worth two thousand dollars a yard. Then, like many wise and economical ladies, she undertook to have her dresses made at home, and installed a dressmaker's establishment in the Tuileries, where these splendid garments were prepared under her immediate supervision. The workroom was directly over her private apartments. By means of a trapdoor, whose mechanism ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various

... sought out the couple. "What! The two smiling into each other's eyes? Those, my boy, are true citizens of the true Bohemia. She is probably a little dressmaker's assistant, whose whole available capital is sunk in that Pierrot hat and those pretty shoes; and he—well, he might be anything with that queer, clever head! But he's probably a poet, in the guise of a journalist, picking up a few francs when he can and where he can. A precarious ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston

... dressmaker they could find. The oldest sister chose a pink silk gown. "I shall wear my red satin cloak trimmed with ...
— Story Hour Readers Book Three • Ida Coe and Alice J. Christie

... Mildred took keen notice of every detail of Grace's dress—the blue cloth gown and jacket, simple but modish, with an air no Highland dressmaker could achieve, for who on earth out of Paris can make anything so perfect as a Paris gown, in which a pretty girl is sure to look like a dream? The little toque on the small head was perched over braids of smooth brown hair, the gloves and boots ...
— Holiday Stories for Young People • Various

... wrong, the idle, decorous, helpless poverty of fallen gentility. Poverty spoke through the unobtrusive little signs over every bell, "Rooms," and through the larger signs that said "Costello. Modes and Children's Dressmaker." Still another sign in a second-story bay said "Alice. Milliner," and a few hats, dimly discernible from the street, bore ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris

... the frock on the dressmaker's figure.) I've made her awfully cross—but I thought it must be a burglar—'cause, you see, I never knew boarders were allowed ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page

... closes: "I don't like that maid of yours, she shows one in as if one were a dressmaker or sister of mercy, and always looks at me as if my bonnet were crooked. You really ought to get a man, it gives such a much better appearance ...
— When the Birds Begin to Sing • Winifred Graham

... if she'd been callin' on the dressmaker pretty often. Anyhow she looked worried and Olindy Cahoon's dressmakin' gabble is enough to worry anybody. She ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln

... present, and it flashed on me afterwards that perhaps this vice of his was the reason of Dick's former owner being so anxious to give him to me. I have had two offers of successors to Dick since, but I shall never have another dog on a sheep station, unless I know what Mr. Dickens' little dressmaker calls "its tricks ...
— Station Life in New Zealand • Lady Barker

... my dressmaker's at half-past eleven, then I've to call in Mount Street at half-past twelve, lunch at the Berkeley, where mother has two women to lunch with her, and a concert at Queen's Hall at three—quite a day, ...
— The Sign of Silence • William Le Queux

... we didn't get to the country very much," she interrupted. "You know July and August are bargain times in the stores and a dressmaker can't afford to leave. Aunty did all her buying then and I went with her. Dear me," as something in his face struck her, "you needn't look so horrified! It's not bad in New York a bit—there's something going on all the while; and then we went to Rockaway and ...
— While Caroline Was Growing • Josephine Daskam Bacon

... Dunn was tall and, in South Denboro, would have been called "fleshy," in spite of her own and the dressmaker's efforts to conceal the fact. She was elaborately gowned and furred, and something about her creaked when she walked. She rushed into the room, at the butler's heels, and, greeting Caroline with outstretched hands, kissed her effusively on ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln

... are watching her, she whispers to us that she must polish them well, and this evening too, for they are her little girl's boots, who is a dressmaker in the town and goes off ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse

... and said nothing. Nancy's conferences with Mrs. Moxley, the dressmaker, were a source of endless amusement to them. It was Mrs. Moxley who had made Nancy's graduating costume that June, and never had been seen on the platform of West Haven High School such a fashionable toilette. It ...
— The Motor Maids at Sunrise Camp • Katherine Stokes

... Frenchman in the white spats I was relieved to find that he had disappeared. My fears that he might be an agent of the Surete were groundless. The afternoon was delightful as we sat beneath the trees, but Madame suddenly recollected an engagement she had with her dressmaker at five o'clock, so we reentered our taxi and drove back to the Porte Maillot and thence direct to ...
— The Golden Face - A Great 'Crook' Romance • William Le Queux

... raised, restless, and frightened imagination over the pages of Udolpho, lost from all worldly concerns of dressing and dinner, incapable of soothing Mrs. Allen's fears on the delay of an expected dressmaker, and having only one minute in sixty to bestow even on the reflection of her own felicity, in being already ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... together with the Whites, were only spectators in the background, and the procession into church consisted of just the absolutely needful persons—-the bride in a delicate nondescript coloured dress, such as none but a French dressmaker could describe, and covered with transparent lace, like, as Mysie averred, a hedgeback full of pig-nut flowers, the justice of the comparison being lost in the ugliness of the name; and as all Rockquay tried to squeeze into the ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge

... on carpet or matting, he at once began to pick up everything he could spy on the floor, and never before did I realize how much could be found there. I had a dressmaker in the house, and Kizzie was always going for a deadly danger—here a pin, there a needle, just a step away a tack or a bit of thread or a bead ...
— Adopting An Abandoned Farm • Kate Sanborn

... when called on, but, they do not make any attempt to impress it upon every one that visits their shores, and by so doing command respect. As for Earls and Lords they are spoken of as my milkman, Lord So-and-So, or my fruiterer or butcher, the Earl of So-and-So, or my dressmaker the Countess of So-and-So, as they are rapidly becoming mixed up ...
— Australia Revenged • Boomerang

... least so it got to the ears of society. She took a sheet of note-paper, wrote the date at the top, added "I make my debut in November," signed her name at the extreme end of the sheet, addressed it to her dressmaker in Paris, and sent it. . . ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly

... blessed Jean in her heart, though her stiff, ungracious lips could not utter a word of thanks. Mary Abbot lived in a neat cottage surrounded by a neat garden. She was a dressmaker in a small way, and had supported her mother till her death. She had been very happy with her work and her bright, tidy house and her garden and her friends, but for more than a year a black fear had brooded over her. Her sight, which was her living, was ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)

... any contest in her life, whether it was a dispute with a dressmaker or a quarrel with her husband, without remembering the comfortable fact that she was a beauty. With men she did not neglect the advantage that being a woman gave her, and with the particular man now before her she had, she knew, a third line of defense; she was the mother ...
— The Happiest Time of Their Lives • Alice Duer Miller

... ease; etageres on which there were reveries. Nothing else. No cupboards hung with confections. No models sailing in and out. Nothing so commercial as anything for sale. Nothing but patrician repose and the chatelaine—a duchess disguised as a dressmaker—who might, or might ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus

... felt she was becoming a slave to what had once been merely an idle propensity; and one day she knew. Every woman tells ninety per cent. of the truth to her dressmaker; the other ten per cent. is the irreducible minimum of deception beyond which no self-respecting client trespasses. Madame Draga's establishment was a meeting-ground for naked truths and over-dressed fictions, and it was here, the Woman felt, that she might make a final effort to recall the ...
— Reginald • Saki

... (the mother died when she was a child) the poor man had an accident, and was drowned. There wasn't much money saved up for Anna Maria, so the barge was sold, and she had to live on dry land, and learn how to be a dressmaker. She was as miserable as a goldfish would be if you took it out of its bowl and laid it on the table. In a few months she'd fallen into a decline, and though, just at that time, she met a dashing young chauffeur, who took a fancy to her pretty, ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson

... like it. One telling was enough though. Her eyes were everywhere, her ears open to every hint, but it was her soul, like a bird imprisoned and beating for the open air. The explanation is, as I have said just now, soul—intense, flaming, unquenchable soul—and, I must say it, the dressmaker, the hairdresser, and the rest directed by our young friend here," pointing to the little nurse. "Why, she had us all on the job. We all became devotees of ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor

... to know them so well that they never went through the form of asking where the books were to be sent? And those tete-a-tete luncheons at her house when her mother was upstairs with a headache or a dressmaker, and the long rides and walks in the Park in the afternoon, and the rush down town to dress, only to return to dine with them, ten minutes late always, and always with some new excuse, which was allowed if it was clever, and frowned at if it was ...
— Gallegher and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis

... Baronet.' He gave the dresses, not only the bridesmaids' white and cerise (Freda's choice), but the chocolate moire which for a minute Mrs. Morton fancied 'the little spiteful cat' had chosen on purpose to suppress her, till assured by all qualified beholders, especially Mrs. Rollstone and a dressmaker friend, that in nothing else would she have looked so entirely quite ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge

... tallish, thin, and two-and-thirty—what ill-natured people would call plain, and police reports interesting. She was a milliner and dressmaker, living on her business and not above it. If you had been a young lady in service, and had wanted Miss Martin, as a great many young ladies in service did, you would just have stepped up, in the evening, to number forty-seven, Drummond-street, George-street, Euston-square, and after ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens

... were several pictures of child-life by Frere, in which, according to Mr. Lamed, "every little figure is full of character"—a fact about which there is no doubt in the accompanying reproduction of Frere's "The Little Dressmaker," which by some chance was ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson

... really dress just like her.' I had noticed the stuff and the make of the dress, and the style of the trimmings. I was as happy as could be, as I went trotting about town, doing everything I could to obtain the same articles. I sent for the very same dressmaker. ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Second Part • Honore de Balzac

... not "what do you think of it, Doctor?" In speaking of foreigners the reverse of the English rule is observed. No matter what the title of a Frenchman is, he is always addressed as Monsieur, and you never omit the word Madame, whether addressing a duchess or a dressmaker. The former is "Madame la Duchesse," the latter plain "Madame." Always give a foreigner his title. If General Sherman travels in Europe and is received by the best classes with the dignity that his worth, culture ...
— Our Deportment - Or the Manners, Conduct and Dress of the Most Refined Society • John H. Young

... said. And, presently: "I'll tell you what we'll do to-morrow, if you'll run away from your dressmaker. We'll go and buy a car for ourselves. It's ridiculous I didn't get one long ago. Frederica's always been at me to. You see, mother wouldn't have anything but horses, and I sold those, of course, ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster

... ravishing new clothes—an evening gown of rainbow Liberty crepe that would be fitting raiment for the angels in Paradise. And I thought that my own clothes this year were unprecedentedly (is there such a word?) beautiful. I copied Mrs. Paterson's wardrobe with the aid of a cheap dressmaker, and though the gowns didn't turn out quite twins of the originals, I was entirely happy until Julia unpacked. But now—I ...
— Daddy-Long-Legs • Jean Webster

... time." And Theresa, who had been brought up to be selfish, and was prudent about her impulses only where she suspected them of being generous, proceeded to arrange for herself the wedding that is still talked about in Chicago "society" and throughout the Middle West. A dressmaker from the Rue de la Paix came over with models and samples, and carried back a huge order and a plaster reproduction of Theresa's figure, and elaborate notes on the color of her skin, hair, eyes, and her preferences ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips

... a spare, black-bearded man, whose uniform of horizon blue gave one rather the impression that it had been made by a dressmaker, but on the left breast was a little strip of crimson and green ribbon, showing that he had won the Military Cross during the war. He had black leggings and narrow black belts, and the wristbands of ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry

... not aware of the honour," she returned, doubtful what the woman meant—perhaps some shop or dressmaker's. Clementina was not one who delighted in freezing her humbler fellow creatures, as we know; but there was something altogether repulsive in the would be grand but really arrogant behaviour of ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald

... prospered, but was sold with some other property for a big factory. Then housekeeping for a nervous invalid wife, and here she had met Mrs. Searing who had proved a true friend. After that sewing, making skirts for a dressmaker and working at childrens' clothes. When it was dull times they drew on the little fund. The girl was ambitious and had mapped out her own life, different from what her mother had planned. They loved each other but ...
— The Girls at Mount Morris • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... are more numerous, and perhaps more onerous, than those of the valet; for while the latter is aided by the tailor, the hatter, the linen-draper, and the perfumer, the lady's-maid has to originate many parts of the mistress's dress herself: she should, indeed, be a tolerably expert milliner and dressmaker, a good hairdresser, and possess some chemical knowledge of the cosmetics with which the toilet-table is supplied, in order to use them with safety and effect. Her first duty in the morning, after having performed her own toilet, is to examine the clothes put off ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton

... black sapphire were uncalled for. If she really had been as kind as she was too often capable of looking, she would have fastened patches over both eyes—one patch would have been useless—and she would have worn flat shoes and patronized a dressmaker with genius enough to misrepresent her. But Julia was not great enough for such generosities: she should have been locked up till she passed sixty; ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington

... good use of the money, all around:—for the poor little milliner whose shop had been destroyed and business ruined, whose children were then eating the bread of charity; and for the customless dressmaker, who was also a grievous sufferer by the flood, with younger sisters to support. We gave her the first work she had had for weeks, and her gratitude was ...
— A Story of the Red Cross - Glimpses of Field Work • Clara Barton

... "She was a dressmaker. She had a wonderful talent. Quite fashionable ladies got to know of it. One of her dresses was presented at Court. I think the lady forgot to pay for it; ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill

... Culture Studio again, the day after Lawyer Judson has explained for us the fine points of that batty will of Pyramid's, I'm about as friendly and guileless as a dyspeptic customs inspector preparin' to go through the trunks of a Fifth avenue dressmaker. He comes in smilin' and chirky, though, slaps me chummy on ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford

... I met an old friend to-day at my dressmaker's in Conduit Street. Not a man. A girl who was a pupil at the Convent at Gueldersdorp—or, rather, I should say a woman, for she ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves

... dress, it is impossible to do more than offer a few general observations. The fashion of dress is for to-day; but the esthetics of dress are for all time. No matter to what absurd lengths fashion may go, a woman of taste will ever avoid the ridiculous. The milliner and dressmaker may handle the scissors never so despotically, but in matters of color, harmony, and contrast they remain under the control of their employer. Dress, indeed, may fairly claim to be considered in the light ...
— Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society • Sarah Annie Frost

... of pain, heard Boche advise the landlord to turn out the dressmaker on the third floor who was behindhand with her rent. She wondered if she would ever be turned out and then wondered again at the attitude assumed by these Boche people, who did not seem to have ever seen her before. They had eyes and ears only for the landlord, who shook hands with his new ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola

... be independent of dressmaker and milliner and cooks. You may have them, I hope you will, but master these useful vocations yourself, then you will have dresses and hats and dinners ...
— Evening Round Up - More Good Stuff Like Pep • William Crosbie Hunter

... I'm saying, Phonzie, about you're knowing how. I needed just a fellow like you to show me how the swell trade has got to be blindfolded, and that the difference between a dressmaker and a modiste is about a hundred and ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst

... about it. Of course it isn't as bad as your job, sitting there all day, sewing and mending. It isn't even as if you were sewing on new stuff, like a dressmaker, and really making something out of it. I should think you'd go ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy

... who had been brought up with expectations and prospects so different. She would far rather that Sarah who was skilful with the needle, and had a decided taste for millinery and dressmaking, should have offered herself to the dressmaker of the neighbouring village, or even have gone to the city to look for such a situation there. But this plan was too indefinite to suit the girls. Besides, there was no prospect of present remuneration should it succeed. So the situation of nurse ...
— Christie Redfern's Troubles • Margaret Robertson

... picked her up as if she had been a dressmaker's dummy, and set her on her feet, where, after swaying about, and some balancing with her hands, she presently steadied herself, and stood, dazed and empty-eyed. Her cheek was cut, her ear was bleeding; her hair was down, the red handkerchief uncoiled; her dusky skin was stained ...
— The Spanish Jade • Maurice Hewlett

... them," returned Elizabeth, drawing them from under her plate, and adding as she glanced at the superscription of the upper one, "it is only from the dressmaker." ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens

... dressmaker, giving a final pat to a rosette of gray silk; "I think that will do, your ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle

... and went off to arrange matters with the clergyman, a friendly and accommodating young man, with the result that on this night once more he slept in the room he had occupied as a boy. For her part Isobel telephoned, first to her dressmaker, and secondly to the lawyer who was winding up her father's estate, requesting these important persons to come to see her ...
— Love Eternal • H. Rider Haggard

... think your belt-pin has become—allow me!" Miss Milligan, dressmaker in private life, with a discreet swiftness, twitched the blouse and skirt into place and deftly fastened it. At the same time she closed a gap in the fastening of ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay

... les Deformations Vulvaires, p. 64. Martineau was informed by a dressmaker that it is very frequent in workrooms and can usually be done without attracting attention. An ironer informed him that while standing at her work, she crossed her legs, slightly bending the trunk forward ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... settled in dis house en I'se bin livin' in hit fer ovuh fifty y'ars. Dere wuz no uther houses 'round 'yer at de time. I own de place. Hab wuk'd all mah life seem ter me. At one time I wuz a chambermaid at de Nicholson House now de Tulane en later 'kum a sick nuss, a seamstress, dressmaker but now I pieces en sells bed quilts. I does mah own housekeepin' ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Tennessee Narratives • Works Projects Administration

... screaming away, by the much-enduring Katy. It was altogether an uncomfortable dinner, and Polly was very glad when it was over. They all went about their own affairs; and after doing the honors of the house, Fan was called to the dressmaker, leaving Polly to amuse herself in the ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott

... of attleboro humanity so effectively that you will hardly be able to tell the real thing from the bogus, and many a man lured into matrimony by the charms of an outward Venus, will find after marriage that he has tied himself up for life to a human hat-rack, specially designed by a clever dressmaker, to yank him from the joys of a contented celibacy into the thorny paths ...
— The Autobiography of Methuselah • John Kendrick Bangs

... muscular development depends upon the length of one's hair; dead people come to life, simply to get a joke on their enemies and heirs; witches and wizards converse freely with the souls of the departed, and God himself becomes a stone-cutter and engraver, after having been a tailor and dressmaker. ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Volume I • Robert Green Ingersoll

... employer was in the north of England. Having to pass through London, I arranged to stay in town for a few days to make some necessary additions to my wardrobe. An old servant of the rector, who kept a lodging-house in the suburbs, received me kindly, and guided my choice in the serious matter of a dressmaker. On the second morning after my arrival an event happened. The post brought me a letter forwarded from the rectory. Imagine my astonishment when my correspondent proved to be Sir ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins

... a dress, as well as to the variety which fashion has prescribed. At all events, let people say what they may, we believe that there is no doubt whatever that the expense of dress has become very much greater than it was thirty years ago. A dressmaker could then make a very first-rate gown, suited to any function at Court or elsewhere, for ten or twelve pounds, whereas now the most ordinary gown, suitable to wear only at a family dinner-party, cannot be made for less than fourteen or fifteen pounds. A ball gown will cost eighteen ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge

... There was a dressmaker in that city whom her mother knew, and with whose children in their early days her daughter had played. Accordingly in the evening the nurse with a younger sister went to the cottage to make ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton

... been granted an inspection of the new gown Edith Symmes has ordered for Bea Habersham's ball," he said. "We've been at her dressmaker's and she drove me here on her ...
— The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow

... not in my province! I believe she receives at any time; it depends upon the visitors. The dressmaker goes in at eleven. Gavrila Ardalionovitch is allowed much earlier than other people, too; he is even admitted to ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... the check, please," she said coldly. "I've just been drawing a few for the dressmakers—a few that Anne has just remembered. I shan't in the least mind adding one for Percy. He isn't a dressmaker but if I were asked to select a suitable occupation for him I don't know of one he'd be better qualified to pursue. ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon

... America to-morrow if the humblest laborer had the quick personal pride of the millionaire? With all our alleged democracy, we realize the impossibility of ringing Mrs. Vanderbilt's doorbell and asking her to sell us a few flowers from her conservatory or to direct us to a good dressmaker, though we can take just such liberties with houses where the evidences that money would be ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee

... COUNTESS, mistress of Louis XV., born at Vaucouleurs, daughter of a dressmaker; came to Paris, professing millinery; had fascinating attractions, and was introduced to the king; governed France to its ruin and the dismissal of all Louis' able and honourable advisers; fled from Paris on the death of Louis, ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... am a widow, twenty-nine years of age, and extremely eligible. My maid is a treasure, and my dressmaker is charming. I'm clever enough to laugh at your jokes and not so learned as to know where they ...
— The Explorer • W. Somerset Maugham

... in town, but not very big at that. It was "clapboarded" and two stories in height, the upper floor being used by Sol Jerrems, the storekeeper, as a residence, except for two little front rooms which he rented, one to Miss Huckins, the dressmaker and milliner, who slept and ate in her shop, and the other to Mr. Cragg. A high platform had been built in front of the store, for the convenience of farmer customers in muddy weather, and there were steps at either end of the platform ...
— Mary Louise in the Country • L. Frank Baum (AKA Edith Van Dyne)

... matters of fashion. But though Paris might dictate, it was found that American milliners had stubborn wills of their own, so Parisian modistes were imported along with Parisian silks, ribands, and gloves. No dressmaker is now considered orthodox who cannot show a prefix of Madame, and the rage for foreign materials and workmanship of every kind is as ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird



Words linked to "Dressmaker" :   garment-worker, sempstress, Ross, garment worker, Betsy Griscom Ross, dressmaker's model, modiste, needlewoman, Betsy Ross, seamstress, garmentmaker



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