Dress c. 1940

Melita Hoffman made this drawing of a dress, sometime in the mid twentieth century, using pencil and watercolor. I’m really drawn to the process here. The evenness of the watercolor, the fine hatched pencil marks…I can imagine Hoffman at her desk, carefully building up the form. I wonder if she ever got frustrated, or smudged the drawing by accident. For me, it’s the materiality that gets me thinking. Take the blue bands—how they sit on the paper, how they become folds, ruffles and shadows. The little flowers on the dress, how they are evenly distributed. I love how she has also added the technical drawing of the crinoline underneath the dress - like an architectural drawing. It reminds me of the work of other dressmakers, designers, pattern-makers and artists who are all in conversation with one another. We don't know exactly when this was made, but the beauty of art is its capacity to transcend its time.