Centered around the voyage of the Titanic and in America following the sinking tragedy, The Dressmaker by Kate Alcott follows the famous dress designer Lady Lucille Duff Gordan and former maid Tess. Lady Lucille is to fashion what Martha Stewart is to home goods. Lady Lucille is famous, incredibly rich and a real pain to work for. Her staff are terrified of her and she feels quite a sense of entitlement. She hires Tess just before the Titanic sets sail to be her assistant while on the ship. Tess, in her desire to show the world her dressmaking skills decides to take the job to leave her old like behind.The book only briefly focuses on the actual Titanic journey. The real drama takes places as the ship goes down and Lady Lucille refuses to let the staff allow any more than 25 passengers on the lifeboat designed to hold 50-60. And going back to pick up survivors in the ocean is not even a thought.
Once in America, the U.S. Senate investigates the sinking and discovers what happened on Lady Lucille's lifeboat and the changing hands of money between her husband and the staff aboard the ship. Could there have been more survivors had the Gordans let their status and egos go? Tess begins to question her loyalty to this wealthy snobby family and the reader begins to really contemplate what happened that fateful night in 1912. Could more passengers been saved? If you were in that lifeboat, would you have questioned the actions of one of the richest most influential people of that era?
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