The Press Dress at the State Library.

Worn by Mrs Matilda Butters in 1866, the 'Press Dress' is on display today in the State Library's Red Rotunda. Photo: Luis Enrique Ascui



She was the ''Lady Gaga of Marvellous Melbourne'', a politician's wife with a predilection for fancy dress who wowed the city's social set during the gold rush years.


The eccentric tastes of one Mrs Matilda Butters even extended to a lavish sartorial representation of ''The Press'', a flowing cream silk gown printed with the front pages of 14 different Melbourne newspapers and the names of 18 regional mastheads.


Worn for a mayor's ball in 1866, and a handful more times in the years that followed, it was one of her most feted creations, reported on glowingly by newspapers of the time.


The Press Dress was printed with the front pages of newspapers.

The Press Dress was printed with the front pages of newspapers. Photo: Luis Enrique Ascui



''The character has been attempted both in London and Paris, with all the facilities for its representation afforded by the resources of these great cities, but in both instances it was a failure,'' The Age reported after the ball.


''In Melbourne, on the contrary, it is gratifying to be able to announce that it was a marked success.'' Not content with just the gown - which featured on its front a portrait of the new governor Sir J.H.T. Manners-Sutton and an illustration of the yet-to-be built Town Hall - Mrs Butters crowned her outfit with a star spangled headdress declaring ''Liberty to the Press'' and even wielded a miniature golden printing press, from which she dashed off excerpts from the Byron poem Lara, on gold-trimmed satin ribbon.


''I think she did stand out and that's why there were really good details of the costume in the papers,'' said Jo Ritale, collection services manager for the State Library of Victoria. ''Other women just played it safe … she really went above and beyond.''


Today, for one day only, the ballgown will be on display at the State Library of Victoria as part of its Carnival of Curiosity, the first time it has been shown in Melbourne since its complete, painstaking restoration in 2007.


It is clear that the dress (of which the Library only has the original large, hooped skirt) has seen better days: the skirt's delicate silk panels are particularly worn at the waist and at the hem, despite the efforts of a conservator who spent 290 hours completely restoring each stitch by hand.


But the prints themselves, transferred onto the silk with news ink from the borrowed front page plates of the city's key newspapers, remain remarkably clear. There's the governor, in whose honour the September 20, 1866 ball was held, a finely engraved illustration of the Town Hall, the unmistakeable figure of Punch from the satirical Punch magazine as well as the stuff of 1860s daily journalism - shipping news, gold prices and declarations from newly minted politicians.


By the time the dress made its third appearance at a costume ball in December 1867, Mr Butters had become lord mayor and it would seem his wife had been judicious in her choice of which articles to feature prominently, even going so far as to amend the text accompanying the new governor's image to give it a more positive spin.


The Press dress will be on show in the State Library's Red Rotunda on July 7.