I was still learning darning and patching in needlework lessons in the 60s, but that may have been failure of syllabus to catch up with modern times. And a lot of my childhood wardrobe was handed down from cousins or family friends. There was a department store in my home town where you could get stockings invisibly mended. I'd agree that the handed-down, made-over party dresses don't sound particularly Dickensian.