Anna - MEMENTO Dress

This made-to-order high quality, reversible dress features a mid-weight, buttery soft natural cotton/linen blend with distressed and frayed seams, printed with the striking artworks of talented 19th century Polish artist,Anna Bilińska-Bohdanowicz..

Included with the dress is a matching clutch, fabric-matched mending patches, and a selection of 19th century inspired slow-fashion & sewing activist patches to showcase your support of independent slow fashion. These items are made from the dress offcuts and are included with the purchase of the dress ☺️

This unconventional, striking design will spark conversation, outlast fleeting trends, and remain a treasured wardrobe staple for many years to come.

One size fits most - see garment measurements below:

• BUST 130cm
• BICEP 40cm
• FRONT LENGTH 82cm
• HIP 140cm

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Anna Bilińska-Bohdanowicz (1854–1893): Artistic greatness gone too soon.

Anna Bilińska was born in 1854 in Złotopol, in what is now Ukraine. Her family relocated after the Polish uprising of 1863, and as a young woman in Warsaw she defied her parents' wishes by renting her own studio and funding it through portrait sales. In 1882, she travelled to Paris and enrolled at the Académie Julian, where she studied under Tony Robert-Fleury — the same master who had taught Maria Wiik just years earlier.

Anna quickly distinguished herself. In 1887, her extraordinary self-portrait — showing herself before a canvas, brush in hand, meeting the viewer's gaze with calm professional authority — won a medal at the Paris Salon. Two years later, the same painting earned a silver medal at the 1889 Exposition Universelle, granting her the rare honour of exhibiting out of competition at future editions. In 1891, she won a gold medal at the Berlin International Exhibition. She was, by any measure, one of the most acclaimed painters of her generation.

In 1892, Anna married Dr. Antoni Bohdanowicz and returned to Warsaw with a dream: to open a painting school for women, modelled on the Parisian ateliers that had shaped her own career. She wanted to give Polish women what she had been forced to travel halfway across Europe to find — proper artistic training, taken seriously.

Just one year later, Anna died of heart disease. She was thirty-eight years old. The school was never built and her legacy never fulfilled.

I hope that in wearing her image and her beautiful artworks, you too will say "I see you, Anna".

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Designed and made by Meg in The Patch, Australia.  All megsmithmakes garments are Ethical Clothing Australia accredited and megsmithmakes is a proud member of Seamless Australia.