Fashions of Past

Fashions of Past – Long, long, ago…During the civil war, the late Mrs. Byrd Tyler Daniel of Bradrick, Ohio, wore a beautiful black lace dress to social functions in Lawrence County, Ohio, and Cabell County, WV. The dress was typical of its period-full and sweeping skirt, narrow waist, high neckline, and medallion collar pin.

Mrs. Daniel, gratefully remembered as a gracious and hospitable lady, died five years ago, but the dress, beautifully preserved, still is in existence. It is on display, worn by a mannequin, in the window of Belle’s ready-to-wear store for women, 313 Ninth Street [Huntington, WV].

Part of Display

The dress is part of a display the store has arranged to contribute to the Cabell County [WV] Sesquicentennial celebration of the Retail Merchants Association. We are having special displays and will conduct “Old Fashion Bargain Day” sales Thursday and Friday in connection with the celebration.

Belle’s store window mirrors the glamorous period of the past that followed the Civil War – the period when the wounds of conflict had healed, and the people of the North and the South were turning attention again to things social.

Mrs. Daniels several years before her death, gave the dress to her granddaughter, a professional opera singer known as Miss Anna Fitziu. Mrs. Fitziu, a native of Huntington, was a soprano who sang with the Metropolitan Opera Co. and with traveling opera companies. She last appeared in Huntington, [WV] in 1923 in “Madame Butterfly.”

Miss Fitziu now lives in Hollywood, Calif., where she has a voice-training studio. The black dress now is the property of Mrs. Maxine Fuller of Chesapeake, [Ohio], a relative of Miss Fitziu.

Four dresses and accessories of the period following the Civil War are displayed in Belle’s window. Antique furniture and jewelry appropriate to the period when the dresses were in style are used to give the display authenticity.

The dress at the extreme left in the window is a mulberry silk party dress trimmed with velvet. Second, from the left is a silk street dress. At right is a brocade silk dress trimmed with satin. Three of the mannequins wear bonnets, and the mannequin wearing the black dress has a fancy hat with a veil.

Mrs. Fuller and Mrs. M.V. Smith loaned the dresses for the display. Mrs. Thelma Hines, Mrs. Genevieve Smooth, and Lee Donald, Jr loaned furniture. The jewelry is the property of Mrs. Lena Prater and Miss Elizabeth Boggs.

Height of Style-In the days of the Floradora Sextet, at the turn of the century, attire such as is won above by Miss Anna Fitziu of Huntington [WV], opera singer, was in style. Miss Fitzui, a soprano, was with the Metropolitan Opera Co., now a resident of Hollywood, Calif.

A dress of the period immediately following the Civil War, given to Miss Fitzui by her Grandmother, is on display in a downtown Huntington [WV] store.

Peep into Past – A peep into the post-Civil War period when women’s dresses were voluminous, narrow-waist, and highly decorative is furnished by this display window of Belle’s ready-to-wear shop. Third from left is Miss Barbara Sayre, the store’s staff, putting the finishing touches on a historical black dress worn by a mannequin. The black dress was worn by the late Mrs. Byrd Tyler Daniel of Bradrick, Ohio, prominently known socially in the early days of Cabell [County, WV] and Lawrence [County, Ohio].

Huntington [WV] Advertiser, 23 June 1959