This is my Grandmother Petranella Kira Gerulis (maiden name) Mekurieff (married name). Would it be possible to date this photo, perhaps based upon her clothing? Or hairstyle? I also need help to identify this style of dress. I am sure it is typical of an ethnic area within or close to the Russian empire. But I am looking for the very localized area that this dress was from. I have read that lace, and lacemaking, and making dresses thereof, can be traced to very specific areas, as each culture has their own way of making lace. I have searched fashions from the Russian empire, but they are either folk costumes, or Imperial court dresses, or fashions that copy the European fashions of the day, and I am only guessing at the year as around 1915. I have only seen one other dress like this, in a book entitled: The Russian Empire, a portrait in photographs, by Chloe Obolensky. I cannot reprint that photo here due to copyright restrictions, but if anyone has that book, it is photo number 56, and the caption to that photo is Teatime at the Semichoss house. There is a lady, approximately 50 or 60 years of age wearing this very style, very thin, unlike my grandmother, but it is the same style of dress. There are younger people in the photo which I think are contemporary with the time that photo was taken, and the other people seem to be in their 20's and thirties, so this style is an older style from the other dresses in that photo. I would say that photo is taken approximately around 1915 to 1920 perhaps, but I am not an expert in photo dating. Semichoss does not appear to be an ethnically Russian name. Anyway, I attach the photo of my grandmother without worry of copyright because I own the photo and copyright. The other photo I have applied for and wait for permission to reproduce it.