Things I've been thinking about...

I have become fascinated by the Aesthetic clothing and costume designer, Alice Comyns Carr. She was a great friend of the actress Ellen Terry, and designed most of her costumes and some of her clothing in the 1880's and 1890's. Mrs. Comyns Carr also wore Aesthetic dress herself, after rebelling most soundly against the bustle of the late 1860's-early 1870's. She just stopped. In her memoirs, she doesn't recount whether she actually stopped wearing a corset, but I assume from the way she describes her dresses that she did.

She was a tall rangy woman with a face more striking than "professionally" beautiful. A few of the Punch cartoons featuring Aesthetic women were based on her. I am about halfway through her Reminiscences, which I bought used off of www.abebooks.com. She is a lively memoirist, and she has much to say about both the fashionable and the artistic society of the day. She met everyone in the Bohemian circles and, while she is circumspect about Oscar Wilde, she does not refrain from giving quite biting - though affectionate - remarks about James MacNeil Whistler. Her husband Joseph Comyns Carr was the co-founder of the Grosvenor Gallery, the place where artists like Burne-Jones and Whistler could exhibit their paintings, away from the restrictions of the Royal Academy.

Ellen Terry trusted her taste in costumes and clothing as she had only ever trusted her former lover E.W. Godwin, the famous Aesthetic designer of everything from houses to furniture to dresses for Liberty and Co. He had originally designed costumes for Ellen when she had first gone on the stage after the disastrous marriage she'd had with the painter George Frederick Watts, which was eventually annulled after she'd already run off to live with Godwin. She speaks of Alice in her memoirs, and Alice remembers her very fondly in her book.

I want to find out more about the woman who actually did the dressmaking for Mrs. Comyns Carr, Mrs. Nettleship. She is hardly mentioned in Alice's memoirs, and yet she was the one doing all the actual sewing. It would be as though I were to neglect to mention all of Veda's help and expertise in making those dresses for my presentation (as well as all the other clothing she's helped me to design and make over the last few years!). But I am hoping that somewhere someone has dredged her out of the past. Mrs. Nettleship's daughter, Ida, was the wife of the painter Augustus John, who in the Edwardian period became fascinated with the gypsies and their way of life, and decided to try it for himself. So he packed up Ida, their children, and his mistress Dorelia MacNeill and they all set off for the open road. (In fact, it is my suspicion that Kenneth Graham based Mr. Toad of Toad Hall in Wind in the Willows on Augustus John, because a few years later, he grew tired of the gypsy life, sold his caravan and bought a big shiny motor car! Just like Mr. Toad!)

I do like how, because of the smallness of the Bohemian circles, everyone ends up being connected somehow. One of these days, I'm going to do a chart starting at William Morris and see how far the links go between him and, say, Augustus John, or Lytton Strachey.

Well, more soon. Much sooner, I promise, than the last time!

Thoughts on Aesthetic fashion and corsetry

One of the strange things about the Aesthetic Movement in dress is that those who picked up the fad as just that, a fad, seemed to miss one of the essential points of why that dress was preferable to the fashion of the moment. There is a painting of Lady Mary Elcho, one of the Souls (an group of aristocratic intellectuals, more about which in a subsequent post), which shows her wearing an Aesthetic style dress, smocked at the waist and sleeves, very simple, very lovely, and she is obviously wearing a fully- and somewhat tightly-laced corset underneath, by the shape of her body under the dress. And I have seen portraits and photographs of other ladies wearing similar dresses over corsets.


My point is that, according to Oscar Wilde, Walter Crane, and others, the purpose of wearing more comfortable clothing that is designed to bear the weight of the garment at the shoulder and to not constrict the movement of the wearer in any way, is confounded by the wearer using a full fashionable corset underneath.


This begs a couple of questions, as I see it. First of all, we know very little about what the Aesthetes suggested women should wear as foundation garments, so for all we know they were wearing some sort of modified looser corset or a bust bodice (the precursor to the modern brassiere.) Secondly, if they weren't wearing proper foundation garments, could that have led to the back problems that at least two or more of the women who wore Aesthetic style were reported to have had in their later lives?


Oscar Wilde's wife, Constance, a prominent member of the Rational Dress society and a seemingly proud wearer of the styles her husband championed had chronic back problems that led to her eventual weak health and early death. Ellen Terry, the great Shakespearean actress, also wore Aesthetic garments and she too complained in later life of back problems.


Now there are examples, extant ones, of "reform" corsets, which had perhaps a little boning and were made of a stiff material, such as calico or heavy muslin, which could serve for some sort of support. When Veda made the gown for my thesis project that she would wear (see second post in this blog), based on Georgiana Burne-Jones's dress in the famous family photograph, she and I talked about what she needed for foundation wear, and I showed her this picture which she then used to make a reconstruction of this garment to wear underneath her dress.

It was beautifully done and I think that she was very satisfied with the support that it gave her.

The other dress that was made, the green and peach Aesthetic gown, we just had our friend A wear a regular bra, because we couldn't make another foundation garment in the short time we had. But I think that a similar sort of foundation garment to the one above would have been worn, but possibly even not that.

So if the women were wearing some sort of support it obviously wasn't enough, at least not as compared to the corsets they had originally worn before converting to the Aesthetic style. Perhaps that was the cause of the backaches. If they were large-breasted or heavy, and had originally worn proper restrictive corsets before becoming Aesthetes, the change in support strength might have been enough to cause some strain in their backs.

All of this said, perhaps those women who were only wearing Aesthetic fashions as part of a fad, didn't want to lose that support and didn't realize there were alternative means of support, like reform corsets and bust bodices. Or perhaps they just didn't care. As with many fads, those who only enter into them lightly often don't care to follow all the rules.

This is just a theory I've been playing with for some time. I'm sure there is some medical information that I am lacking in order to really understand the strain or not on the unsupported back, but going by my own personal experience of wearing corsets and boned bodices, they certainly make life before bras more easily supported, if you'll forgive the bad pun!

Victorian Fashion Websites

During the course of my own research into Victorian costume, first for my thesis and now just for the love of it, I have run across many useful and informative sites, and some rather less helpful ones. So I thought I would make a list of those sites that I have come across, so far, that have been of the best use to me and which I feel I can recommend to other scholars of Victorian fashion and anti-fashion, and of Victorian history and literature in general.

http://www.corsetsandcrinolines.com/
A site which sells vintage clothing, including Victorian and Edwardian pieces. I have not ordered from them, so I don’t know how reliable or legitimate their pieces might be. But if nothing else, it does show the range of Victorian clothing that is out there for sale. Also many of the pieces are displayed in multiple pictures, depicting their construction and ornamental details, which is an aid to those who are studying actual costume construction.

http://content.lib.washington.edu/costumehistweb/index.html
A wonderful online collection of images from a collection put together by the costume historian and designer Blanche Payne, a professor at the University of Washington. The fashion plates in the collection cover the period from 1806-1915, and are both in color and black and white. Absolutely invaluable for scholars wishing to know exactly what the latest fashions for these years would be.

http://www.meg-andrews.com/
Ms. Andrews’ site sells antique costumes and textiles, and again I cannot vouch for the site, but the photos of her objects for sale are beautiful and, in some cases, quite detailed and enlargeable, which make them, again, a wonderful source for researchers. Her pieces are quite beautiful and I would recommend going there simply for the sheer aesthetic appreciation that the site affords.

http://costume.osu.edu/Reforming_Fashion/reformdress.htm
One of the few actual exhibitions that has been done on this subject. Sadly I did not see it in person, but the online exhibition is just as good. The exhibition covers both the Victorian fashion that the reformers were seeking to transform and the resulting garments and undergarments. From one of their photos of a reform corset, a very talented seamstress friend of mine managed to create a wearable reproduction of it for my thesis project. A wonderful online resource of both information and images about this important 19th century movement, so dear to the hearts of Oscar Wilde and Walter Crane, etc. There are also examples of artistic dress from England and Europe as well as from America. A site well worth spending some time reading and examining.

http://www.loyno.edu/~history/journal/1989-0/rodrigues.htm#46
An interesting online article on “Rational Dress” vs. fashionable dress and the attitudes of both feminists and anti-feminists to both styles of dress. The article does not mention artistic dress, confining itself mostly to the “ugly” bloomers and woolen undergarments and reform corsets contrasted with the restricting corsets and bustles of the fashionable ladies. The historical background that Ms. Rodrigues gives is informative and well-footnoted. There are no illustrations to the article, which is a tiny drawback for those unfamiliar with some of the reform garments mentioned, but the text strives to describe the costumes in enough detail to give an adequate idea of the clothing.

http://www.fathom.com/seminars/21701726/
An excellent online seminar in five sessions on the development of the corset and the crinoline in the 19th and 20th centuries. Two eminent costume historians, Suzanne Lussier and Lucy Johnston, take the reader through from the beginning of Victoria’s reign through to the age of Vivienne Westwood and Jean-Paul Gaultier. They are very sensible in their approach to the subject matter, debunking many of the horror-stories, while not denying that there were some misuses of the garments that led to the stories in the first place. Well-illustrated and very informative. They do not dwell much on the reform movements or garments, preferring to concentrate on the fashionable garments which they had more access to at the Victoria and Albert museum costume collection, of which Ms. Johnston is a curator. All in all, I recommend this as a precise and well-written introduction to the subject.

http://www.victoriana.com/
“The Victorian Era Online”. This is rather a catch-all site for a number of different Victorian subjects, but they do have a whole page of links on Victorian fashion, some useful, some not. Still, a fun site to poke around on.

And to finish, a couple of recommendations for general costume sites:

http://milieux.com/costume/
A large site mostly of links to other sites, but an excellent compilation of resources for all periods of costume.

http://www.costumes.org/index.html
Tara McGinnes’ excellent and immensely copious collection of links and pages on all manner of costumes, and on design and construction, as well as purchasing and patterns. This is my main source of costume knowledge on the net. She updates the site fairly regularly and most of the links work. There is a page for every period of history you can think of, and every nation. Some pages are more comprehensive than others, but she does her best, either with links or articles or images. My only tiny problem with the site is that it’s a little too busy, too many ads and images on sidebars to distract from what you’re trying to find. But that’s a small price to pay for such a fabulous reference site.

So that is my list, to this date. I’m sure I have missed out on many wonderful sites, and if indeed anyone has sites to recommend to me, I would love to hear about them.

Meanwhile, I encourage you to visit the sites I mentioned above and hopefully, I will be able to post another list in the future with still more sites.

This list will also be posted on the O-Scholars newsletter in July.

The Blossoming of a Neo-Aesthete, Part the Third

Since finishing my plan and getting my degree from Marlboro College, I have continued to be interested in the Victorian Bohemian milieu in all of its aspects. I have slowly amassed a small but choice library of books, both primary sources and secondary, about the subject, as well as all of the other books I collect, including anything by Oscar Wilde and as many art books and history books as I'm able to keep in my limited library space.

My last visit to the UK was in 2005, and I found many places of interest to do with the Bohemians. I was particularly thrilled to find the wonderful collection of Pre-Raphaelite paintings and memorabilia at the National Art Gallery of Wales, as well as their amazing collection of Augustus John paintings, including several portraits of Dorelia McNeill. I also spent some time in Llandaff Cathedral, outside Cardiff, which has some lovely William Morris stained-glass windows:

There were also some lovely Burne-Jones tiles:

Kind of hard to see, but they're really quite lovely.

And then there are a couple of pictures that my dear friend R in Glasgow will recognize:

Murals from the original Ingram Tea Room in Glasgow which was designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh and the murals were by his wife Margaret MacDonald Mackintosh.

This is an experimental post to see how well the images upload etc., so there may be some editing that needs to be done.

The Blossoming of a neo-Aesthete, Part Deux

First of all, let me apologize for the formatting in the first entry, it will hopefully be better this time, as I will not be messing with the line breaks.

So I left the story at my senior thesis for Marlboro. Well, that went through a few permutations, but eventually settled on being two papers, one on Victorian Bohemian history and one on artistic dress. I had two advisors, both wonderful men, who encouraged me mightily and were tremendously helpful in getting my mind organized, as was my dear spouse.

And so I went to Britain to do some research and was freshly acquainted every day with the Pre-Raphaelite collection at the Tate, the examples of aesthetic dress at the Victoria and Albert, as well as their excellent British Design Galleries, and the Library at the V&A which was one of the few places I was able to see the very rare Aesthetic Dress journal of Walter Crane, called Aglaia. I had them photocopy several pages of the journal for me, which I still have, and hope to scan in bits of for this journal, at a later date.

I also was assigned by my Theatre professor/advisor on the costume side of things that I should see 15 different performances of some kind and do an analysis of a costume from each performance. Of course I had a blast doing that, but it also was extremely beneficial to my understanding of how clothes signify and express the emotions and the personality of the wearer. A shawl can be just a shawl, or it can be a shield against the world, an emblem of class or status, or a tool of seduction, depending on who is wearing it, where it's being worn, and how it's being worn. And that is true of most pieces of clothing, in real life as well as in performance.

These analyses helped me greatly in my emerging understanding of the significance of the clothing worn in paintings and also by the women of the Pre-Raphaelite, Aesthetic and Bloomsbury cadres. And I think to this day, I am much more aware of the use of a particular piece of costuming or clothing, while watching either a play or a film, or even a TV show.

I finished the papers, and I designed three dresses that were to be modelled, accompanied by a Powerpoint presentation that explained the contrast between fashionable and artistic dress in these three different periods. For each of the periods, I chose one or two women on whom to focus my attention, though I also brought in others as examples. For the Pre-Raphaelites I chose Georgiana Burne-Jones, who as the wife of one of the later Pre-Raphaelite painters, Edward Burne-Jones, was an exemplar of a prosaic quiet woman, whose ideas of fashion were turned on their head by her involvement with her husband and his circle. Upon her marriage, according to the author Judith Flanders, she never again wore fashionable Victorian dress. Only the lightest of corsets, laced very gently, and no crinolines or bustles, were the foundations of her garments.

For the Aesthetes, two women stood out for me as being influential in both the Aesthetic and Dress Reform movements, Ellen Terry and Constance Wilde. Ellen Terry was one of Britain's finest actresses, known for her excellent Shakespearean roles, played opposite the great Sir Henry Irving. She was almost not an actress, however, even though she came from a theatrical family. She met and married the painter G.F. Watts, a sort of adjunct Pre-Raphaelite, at the tender age of sixteen. The marriage was not consummated and a few months later she fell in love with the Aesthetic designer E.W. Godwin, who'd been responsible for making a lovely costume for an earlier performance, before her marriage. He swept her off to Aesthetic wonderland, ensconcing her in a house decorated and designed by him, where she and the children she would bear him out of wedlock, dressed in Aesthetic fashions and lived an Aesthetic lifestyle, until he abandoned them all, leaving her financially insolvent. She went back on the stage and met Irving, and that was that. But Miss Terry hardly ever went back to wearing corsets, often lazing about and receiving visitors, wearing a Japanese kimono, badly tied, amidst decorations of Japanese fans and classical statuary.

Constance Wilde, the wife of Oscar Wilde, was of course influenced by her Aesthetically minded husband, but I think that she truly believed in the cause of Rational Dress, and the beauties of comfortable and hygienic clothing, wool next to the skin and gowns that hung from the shoulders rather than from the waist. She was a walking embodiment of these principals, according to the many descriptions to be found in contemporary ladies' magazines of her costumes at different events.

My choice of ladies to talk about for the Bloomsbury period was a little more tenuous and hard to pin down, strangely enough. Dorelia MacNeill John, first the mistress, later the second wife of the painter Augustus John, was not much written about. I had some information on her from a few websites and from Michael Holroyd's excellent biography of Augustus John, but it wasn't a whole lot. But basically, because of John's fascination with the gypsy culture, particularly those found in Britain, he took Dorelia and his then wife Ida and all their children off in a gypsy caravan, trying to live the gypsy life. He painted several portraits of Dorelia in loose skirts and Chinese Jackets and simple dresses with attached bodices and a few buttons down the front. This loose clothing was a favored attire for women artists in Bloomsbury, particularly Dora Carrington, who wore them with her blunt bobbed hair and sweaters and clogs. In fact, you can still see women wearing them in art departments and classrooms to this day.

So these are the women I based my clothing designs on. You can see photos of the finished dresses at www.renaissance-artist.com, the site of my dear friend Veda Crewe Joseph, without whom they would never have been made. Her experience with design and color were invaluable in putting together the right fabrics and colors. The Pre-Raphaelite gown was in fact an almost exact copy of a gown that Georgiana Burne-Jones wears in a photo of the Burne-Jones and Morris families. Veda helped me to find just the right material that would echo what we could see of the dress in the photo.

More in the next blog entry, it's late and I need to get to bed!

The Blossoming of a neo-Aesthete

The Bride of Bethlehem by William Holman Hunt

Where to begin? Well, welcome, first of all to a blog I hope to keep up with fairly regularly, hopefully at least once a week, if not more.

First of all, why this subject? The late 19th century has held a fascination for me ever since I was 14. The gateway into this wondrous world was the viewing of two television series, both airing in 1978 (to the best of my memory) here in the States. The first was Edward the King, starring the great actor Timothy West (father to the brilliant young actor Sam West). I was fascinated by the royal family and all their doings and scandals and tragedies. Amidst it all, the beautiful Mrs. Lillie Langtry appeared -- played by the beautiful Francesca Annis -- and I was captivated by her, just as the king was.

Then came the series Lillie, also starring Ms. Annis, and I was again drawn into the world of riches and beautiful dresses and costumes. Just as my dazzled eyes were beginning to be accustomed to the beauty and scandal of Mrs. Langtry's burgeoning life in London, they were shown a new god, a tall poetical youth in a loose white shirt illuminated by a window and coming forward to salute his new worshipper, though he professed to worship at her feet instead. Oscar Wilde it was who was my new deity, speaking such words of fire and passion to ignite the hungrily passionate soul of a fairly lonely teenager. I immediately went to my nearest library and, checking out Wilde's complete works, I devoured it cover to cover, writing down poems and aphorisms and epigrams and witticisms that caught my eye. Everything he said seemed to resonate deep inside my soul. He became my obsession and he still is.

I learned more and more about Wilde and his times and found more people to be interested in. My first trip to Britain in 1984 was responsible for my complete conversion to the Pre-Raphaelite Movement and its successors. Living in Cambridge, I spent a lot of time in the Fitzwilliam Museum gazing at Pre-Raphaelite paintings there. One, The Bride of Bethlehem by William Holman Hunt, hung on the tiny mezzanine in the museum's front room. The narrow walkway enforced a close perusal of the work and it was an education in color and beauty, as I had never experienced before. I bought a book of Pre-Raphaelite paintings while I was there, and I became fascinated by their work.

Over the years of university, work, then back to university again, I always had this driving fascination with the lives and works of the painters and writers of the late 19th century. Finally in my second and successful attempt to get a bachelors degree, I took this long-standing passion and turned it into my two-year Plan at Marlboro College in Vermont. I narrowed and winnowed my ideas and my interests down to two things, Victorian Bohemian history and artistic and aesthetic dress.

I'll continue this introduction in my next blog entry.