‘Sackback Status Symbol’
The latest addition to Paxton House's 2023 costume exhibition titled "Parallel Lives, Worlds Apart: from sugar plantations in Grenada to life at Court": a long sack gown as would have been worn in the 1770s by Penelope Home, mistress of Paxton House as well as sugar and cotton plantations in Grenada and Mustique where she and her husband owned enslaved Africans.
Cait Burk (a fellow University of Glasgow dress and textile histories student) and I made this gown as a live public event at Paxton House the first week of April 2023. Cait then modelled the completed gown. This project was carried out under the direction and supervision of Paxton's consulting curator, Fiona Salvesen Murrell, who took all these lovely photos.
I edited photos and footage created by myself, Fiona, and Sarah Greenwood of Likeminded Communications into a 25-minute-long video, which will be posted on Paxton House’s website soon.
The gown is now on display at Paxton House, along with a wide range of other costumes representing individuals connected to Paxton over its history. Book a house tour to see the entire exhibition: www.paxtonhouse.co.uk.
