Casgliadau Arlein

Dress worn by drag queen Marcia Bassey Jones. Marcia was a mainstay on the Cardiff drag scene from the mid-1980s performing in venues such as the Tunnel, Wow and Minsky’s.

Floor-length, long-sleeved, brown sequin and lace dress. The dress is constructed from 3 types of fabric, joined together as 6 curved horizontal bands, with a CB seam. The torso is made from brown semi-transparent net fabric that has elements of glitter (miniscule hexagonal silver disks that are adhered to the net). At the top, surrounding a high neckline, is a brown synthetic lace fabric which has been applied to the net. Gold sequins and smaller spangles (disks without the hole) have been adhered to the lace. Below is a section of just the net on its own, and further down, at the hip, is a panel of brown sequinned fabric. The sequins, which are silver with a holographic coating, are machine-stitched to a fine synthetic jersey-knit ground. They are arranged in tightly spaced wavy lines.

The skirt section is made from another band of lace (here, the lace is used on its own, not applied to the net, so this band is quite see-through), followed by the net to around knee-height, and the widest panel at the bottom is again the sequinned fabric. The rear of the skirt comes to a point at CB. The sleeves are made of the net fabric. Across the top of the sleeves is a narrow wedge of applied lace, tapering from shoulder to cuff. Front and back of sleeves are trimmed with pleated ruffles made from the lace. Raw edge at cuffs. Long (56cm) metal zip at CB. 2.5cm single turn-back at hem.