Can we embrace these food-themed fashions for their beauty, rather than because they hide our curves?
Welcome to a post I started ages ago, and never finished off. So while the inspiration isn’t so ‘timely’, it is still a topic I’ve been stewing on (food pun intended) for some time.
This past Spring saw the very welcome return of The Great British Sewing Bee, which for the uninitiated, follows much the same format at The Great British Bake-Off: 3 challenges (corollaries: signature/pattern, technical/transformation, showstopper/made-to-measure), cheeky banter, and loads of tension. One ‘garment of the week’ (star baker), and one exit. The GBSB week 1 theme was ‘Wardrobe Staples’, and Sewists had 5 hours to create a made-to-measure Buffet Dress. Never heard of that? Me either! While 19th century fashion is my specialty, I’m not usually so switched off. Host Joe Lycett explained:
The loose-fitting Buffet Dress became a monster hit on the high street in 2019, and has since sold in the hundreds of thousands…
-GBSB S7E1
One contestant, Cathryn, a postal worker and former dinner lady, was more on trend than I, as she explained: ‘It’s been very popular with those who’ve been having some extra treats and things because we’ve been isolated.’ Cathryn is also, like me, a huge David Bowie fan and has a cat named Ziggy Stardust, so I totally trust her.
But looking at all the patterns, and finished dresses (which I won’t spoil here), it was apparent that a ‘Buffet Dress’ was the same thing as a Maxi Dress. Or possibly a smock. And when I ran shamefully to the internet to try and discern the origins of this tantalising term, I was relieved that many, many other people had never heard of a Buffet Dress before, including the brilliant Deborah Sugg Ryan.
I’ve never heard the term buffet dress before but I’m partial to a Muumuu aka by my kids the Homer Simpson dress #SewingBeepic.twitter.com/Zg9cJimW9C
— Prof Deborah Sugg Ryan #StandWithUkraine 🇺🇦 (@DeborahSuggRyan) April 14, 2021
I even asked at a recent 19th Century Dress and Textiles Reframed ‘At Home’ event – a respectable gathering of dress historians from all over the globe – if anyone had heard of a ‘buffet dress’. The response was a resounding no, with one exception of someone from Australia who said it had been a popular beach dress recently. So where does this come from?
Foodie Fashion
This is not the first time in fashion history that a woman’s desire for comfort – and food – has been linked to dress typologies. Tea Gowns were born for just such a purpose. Many dress historians state the Tea Gown became a ‘thing’ in the 1870s, according to popular press. However, its origins are a bit older and murkier than that, inspired by the beauty of highly collectable Chinese robes and Japanese kimnonos, and alongside the Artistic Dress of circles such as the Pattle Sisters. Watts’ Portrait of Sophia Dalrymple (1851) certainly depicts a precursor to a Tea Gown, its loose, unstructured form designed to be worn privately, perhaps during the ‘At Homes’ hosted by Sarah (Pattle) Prinsep’s at Little Holland House in Holland Park, London.
G.F. Watts, Sophia Dalrymple, 1851-53, oil on canvas, 198 x 78.7 cm. Collection: Watts Gallery, Compton [COMWG.200].
Equally, the dress James McNeil Whistler designed for Symphony in Flesh Colour and Pink, Portrait of Mrs Frances Leyland has been referred to as an example of an early tea gown – though I have questioned whether this dress, in the end, was even ‘real’ (as in, was it assembled in a manner that was robust enough to be worn out in the world, or was it an ensemble of fabric made for modelling?).
James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834 – 1903)
Symphony in Flesh Colour and Pink: Portrait of Mrs Frances Leyland, 1872-1873
oil on canvas
77 1/8 in. x 40 1/4 in. (195.9 cm x 102.24 cm)
Henry Clay Frick Bequest.
Accession number: 1916.1.133
Certainly by the end of the 19th century, the tea gown was a popular form of dress amongst those that afford it, as evidenced by examples from Liberty’s catalogues:
Liberty ‘Valeria’ Gown, from Liberty & Co, “Liberty” Art (dress) Fabrics & Personal Specialities.1886; National Art Library, V&A.
Liberty ‘Francesca’ Gown, 1902. from Liberty & Co. Ltd., “Liberty” Costumes, Spring and Summer Designs, 1902; National Art Library, V&A.
Although the Tea Gown continues to be a term for a kind of ‘afternoon’ dress into the 20th century, these earlier draped assemblages were closely linked to the Victorian design movement known as Aestheticism. It was a holistic approach to design, a way of living and life really, that centred on the simple premise that surrounding oneself with beautiful things, including wearing beautiful clothes, showed that one was a beautiful person. On the surface, this sounds rather frivolous, but it was actually a much more nuanced philosophy that such aesthetics were a reflection of one’s interior self – their very soul, in fact. These lofty ideals will be the focus of a different post – I promise! – but to keep on topic, the Tea Gown, simply stated, is the comfortable and beautiful garment one might don for entertaining at home, notably when having companions over for tea. There are numerous extant examples in public collections – particularly as the House of Worth began producing them especially for the American market at the end of the 19th century. Here is a very small Pinterest board with just a few examples:
LATE EDIT: I completely missed that my wonderful friend & colleague Abby Cox did a whole fab video on tea gowns, featuring one from her own collection, a couple months ago! Please take some time to look at this, it’s great stuff!
So if a Tea Gown was a comfortable dress to be worn at home while enjoying one’s tea; the Buffet dress is the comfortable garment to be worn out into the world after you’ve eaten ALL THE THINGS, if the internet and Sewing Bee are to be believed. A search for ‘buffet dress’ now returns a bazillion hits, but one of the the earliest posts I found is from January 2019, which talks about it as if it is already a trend: a loose flowy dress perfect for hiding the hideous pounds one gained on Christmas cheese and chocolate. Because of course, whether being festive or weathering a pandemic, women must always HIDE even a few pounds of weight gain, right?
Buffet Dress by Plumo.com – WEDNESDAY DRESS, Ditsy floral printed oversized ankle length dress with gathered detailing, dropped shoulders, a round neck line, pleated knot tie cuff and lantern sleeves. With pockets. Shown here with Hampton boots.
I don’t mean to be a hypocrite – as a fat woman who grew up in the 70s/80s, I have long been a proponent of roomy clothes. In fact, too loose, too baggy – stuff that might ‘hide’ my shape, but fairly shouts that I’m not happy with my body. I am nearing 50 years on the planet, and only recently have I started to embrace clothes that fit me. But before I digress too far into my own personal history of being uncomfortable in my body, a popular pastime for pretty much every woman alive, my love of ‘flowy’ dresses isn’t solely down to my desire to conceal my form. Equally at play is the the desire for comfort, and the beauty of the fall of fabric. And that’s perhaps why I fell in love with Artistic Dress, particularly in the form of a Tea Gown. The irony of my attraction to food-themed garments is not lost on me, especially as I sit in a cafe writing this while side-eyeing the scones. How nice would it be, though, if we could simply embrace these beautiful dresses for love of form and design, rather than because they hide our curves?
I’ve more to say but as I feel this post is already ‘past its prime’, here is an article on Buffet Dresses from the Telegraph dated 4 July 2021. Given that I started writing this post in April, I’ll take this as a cautionary tale to not let things sit until they go stale – who likes staleness in their teas or buffets after all?
Bonus: if this post made you hungry, please check our my recipes, especially my lovely wonderful scones!
Unknown (possibly H.T. Prinsep), Sarah Prinsep and G.F. Watts, ca. 1850s. Copy photograph from an Emery Walker negative. National Portrait Gallery, London [NPG 953/8].
Two rather exciting exhibits related to Artistic Dress have just opened in the London area: Liberating Fashion: Aesthetic Dress in Victorian Portraits at the Watts Gallery; and Yinke Shonibare MBE: The William Morris Family Album at the William Morris Gallery. As I am currently ensconced across the pond, I cannot yet review these exhibits, but am very excited to see them. But today I was pointed to posts on each of these that I feel reflect some of the problems in discussing, and understanding, Artistic Dress.
A moment, while I adjust my soapbox.
One of the larger issues I wrestle with in my research, which I’ve mentioned in this blog before, is the way in which ‘Artistic’ and ‘Aesthetic’ are used interchangeably in both Victorian literature and discussions since. In some ways this might be a semantic debate not worth tackling, but I actually find the problem interesting because it reveals that alternative sartorial practices amongst artistic circles were much more diverse than is often thought. This is one of the reasons why I have deliberately chosen to give primacy to the term Artistic Dress in my research, as I feel it reflects a broader approach to these fashions. It includes Aestheticism, but also some of the socio-political aspects of Reform dress. It also encompasses earlier styles that have been referred to as ‘Pre-Raphaelite Dress’ (I’ve written a little about this here); and later styles that gave way to the freer fashions of the early 20th century. Artistic Dress encompassed a range of approaches to fashion, and in my opinion, individuals that were proponents Aesthetic Dress in particular seemed to be very concerned with crafting a look that was not just reflective of creative sensibilities, but also made to be seen, in public.
Jane and the other women of the Aesthetic Movement established a new style of dress that made the unconventional fashionable and paved the way for women’s bodies finally being released from restrictive clothing.
John Parsons, Jane Morris posed by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 7 July 1865. Albumen print from wet collodion-on-glass negative, 253 x 200 mm. Victoria and Albert Museum [820-1942].
This is not the first account to lay credit to Morris; one of the Tudor house photos (above), taken by Parsons and styled by Rossetti, in fact illustrates the entry for ‘Aesthetic Dress’ in the Berg Companion to Fashion. The problem here is that close examination reveals that the two dresses she wears in these photos are not radical new modes of fashion: one is modelling costume, the other is a standard Victorian dress. Both are worn without supportive undergarments, likely for the purposes of Rossetti’s creative delectation. To hold them up as examples of Morris’ day-to-day dress in 1865 is a rather large presumption. In fact, the accounts of her being seen ‘guiltless of hoops’ (as Henry James put it) in this period (1860s) occur when she is in the semi-private space of her home, or in friend’s studios. I do not mean to suggest that she did not dress in an artistic fashion, rather that holding her up as the trendsetter is problematic. Further, Morris was not in a social position to influence widespread changes in fashion – unlike the Pattle sisters, whom Watts so elegantly recorded and whose portraits are at the heart of the Liberating Fashion exhibition. Outside of that one suggestion, however, I have no qualms with the above Morris Gallery post and am incredibly excited to see Shonibare’s interpretations of the Morris Family Album. I am a huge fan of his work.
Similarly, Richard Dorment’s review of the Watts Gallery exhibition reflects established views on perceptions of Aesthetic Dress, alongside some surprisingly harsh criticisms of the women who wore them. Dorment, who has curated and co-authored excellent projects on Whistler, is someone well-versed in the canon of Aestheticism. I am less certain of how in-depth his research was in terms of dress, but one of his images in fact links back to this blog (*cough cough*); and he does in fact provide keen insight into Frith’s A Private View that is derived from the artist’s own comments in his Reminiscences (1888):
There were – and still are, I believe—preachers of æstheticism in dress; but I think, and hope, that the preaching is much less effective than it used to be. The contrast between the really beautiful costumes of some of the lady habituées of our private view and the eccentric garments of others, together with the opportunity offered for portraits of eminent persons, suggested a subject for a picture, and I hastened to avail myself for it. [1]
‘A Private View at the Royal Academy, 1881’ by William Powell Frith, 1882-83 (exhibited 1883). Oil on Canvas. Private Collection.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Dorment’s review frequently conjures the old standby artiste of which no discussion of Aestheticism would be complete – our Jimmy Whistler. Now, at the risk of offending my own dear mentor (and his co-author) Margaret F. MacDonald, I confess that I’m getting slightly weary at the gravitational positioning of Whistler in every discussion of Aesthetic Dress. Because, in truth, although fashion is incredibly important to his work, and although he is central to Aestheticism in England for a time, only a handful of his works portray Aesthetic Dress.
G.F. Watts, Sophia Dalrymple, 1851-53, oil on canvas, 198 x 78.7 cm. Collection: Watts Gallery, Compton [COMWG.200].
Dorment refers to the best example, my personal favourite Mrs Leyland. But for him to comment, at the end of the review, that ‘the omission of Whistler is unforgivable’, I have to slightly cringe. Because it would have been quite a challenge for the Watts Gallery to get either Mrs Leyland or any of the White Girls for what is essentially a small exhibit (though I admit the latter would have made a lovely comparison with Sophia Dalrymple).
Dorment also claims that ‘Adherents of rational dress for women like the painter GF Watts were concerned not with enhancing female beauty but with promoting women’s health by advocating clothing that allowed their bodies to move freely’[sic]; and that ‘Watts’s interest in dress reform has little to do with fashion and still less with art for art’s sake.’ I suppose he means that Watts isn’t concerned with mainstream fashion, and that in his concern with what seems natural in beauty Dorment rightfully aligns with Ruskin and Morris – and I would add Godwin to that list as well. But Watts certainly does place emphasis on issues of beauty in relation to fashion and reform in his writings on dress. In fact, it is this combination of issues on the need for beauty in reform dress that ultimately gives rise to the Healthy and Artistic Dress Union. Watts essay on women’s dress in the second issue of their journal Aglaia makes the concern with fashion, beauty and art very clear. Focused on the matter of taste – a central topic for Aestheticism – he states:
…any arrangement that diminishes or disturbs the effect of the upright spring of the neck from the level shoulders, more beautiful than anything else in the world, and unlike anything else in the world…there can be no greater sign of defective taste.
…That lines are beautiful in proportion to their capacity for variety, and the interest greater by the display of light and shade; that length of line gives height and distinction to the human figure, are principles which should never be ignored by any who would cultivate the delightful art of dressing with good taste. [2]
One can easily imagine the dresses of Sophia Dalrymple and her sisters, worn nearly 50 years earlier, in this description. Yet Watts painted not just women in various forms of loose clothing, as in the Pattle pictures, but also rendered society ladies dressed in very fashionable gowns that had come under the influence of Aestheticism. A good example of this is his 1877 portrait of Blanche, Lady Lindsay, playing the violin in a gown that, although in colour and trim is certainly styled Aesthetically, is also cut to be worn with a corset, and the catching up of the fabric in the rear has been made to resemble a bustle. In this way she could express her artistic sensibilities while not straying too far from the fashionable silhouette of the day.
G.F. Watts, ‘Portrait of Blanche, Lady Lindsay’. Oil on canvas, 110.5 x 85.1 cm, 43 1/2 x 33 1/2 in. Private Collection.
Issues of taste as expressed through fashion are at the core of these images. Dorment also comments on taste in his review, pointing out that ‘Then, as now, it wasn’t the fashion designs that were the problem but the (lack of) taste of the people who actually wore the clothes they saw in fashion periodicals.’ Not having seen the exhibition, I’m not entirely sure what painting Dorment is referring in his criticism of this work:
As for poor drippy Miss Anna Alma-Tadema, got up by her sadly misinformed father (the artist, Sir Lawrence) as a Grecian maid, you can laugh, you can cry – but have to admit that she looks awful.
I don’t think it is, and dearly hope it isn’t, the lovely portrait of the sixteen-year-old Anna wearing an Artistic Dress with a rather bohemian-looking necklace of seashells. Her look is radically ahead of its time, evoking a style that the Bloomsbury group might sport in another two decades.
Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, Anna Alma Tadema, oil on canvas, 1883, Royal Academy of Arts
Both Dorment’s and the William Morris Gallery’s commentaries speak to the ongoing discrepancies in understanding what Artistic and/or Aesthetic Dress was, and what it wasn’t. Again, not having seen the exhibition, I cannot speak to the story it does or doesn’t tell in regards to Aesthetic Dress, but I’m very glad that the topic is getting further attention. Both exhibits are sure to highlight the importance of and innovative approach to sartorial practice for Victorian artists, showing once again that they deserve a place amongst the annals of the avant-garde.
[1] William Powell Frith, My Autobiography and Reminiscences (London: Richard Bentley & Son, 1888), 441.
Hamo & Agatha Thornycroft, Dress (possibly a Wedding Gown), 1884. Striped washing silk from Liberty, with hand-smocked and gathered sleeves, lined with cotton. Victoria & Albert Museum, Given by Mrs W.O. Manning [T.171-1973].
This is a post I wasn’t going to make – it was in the ‘save it for the book’ category. However, one of my keen-eyed students from my Artistic Dress class at the GSA pointed out to me that some of my research had been posted to the V&A online catalogue – with no credit to me. Now, before the gasps of outrage form, let me say that I am fine with this, and use it as an excuse to share one of my favourite stories from my thesis. It might prove an interesting (hopefully) insight into how research of this type makes an impact, even if small.
The research relates to a dress (above) that has been viewable in the online collection for some time (its condition is too fragile for sustained display). It was one of the first dresses I identified to study, and has been referenced in other literature in this area. Another wonderful white gown, it is one of those specimens often identified as Aesthetic Dress, and it does somewhat walk in that rather murky area. When I first researched this dress, and at the time of my PhD completion (early 2012), the V&A catalogue said very little about it, but credited it as being a Liberty gown, designed by Hamo Thornycroft. Now, the object information has been updated with information I discovered in the Thornycroft archive at the Henry Moore Institute in Leeds, which I happily passed on to the curators. I did this because they allowed me to come and examine the dress when it was still being mounted for display in the Cult of Beauty exhibit, and after a chat with the Senior Textile Conservator Frances Hartog, I realised that they were not aware of the relevant letters. Interestingly, Hartog’s own observations on the gown were in line with the story I learned from the Thornycroft letters (more below). The marriage of research and technical study is a wonderful thing! As is academic generosity.
I shall cease being vague, and excerpt the relevant material from my thesis, as it was one of my favourite stories to write. Probably because it is a wee bit of a romance! Read on…
Unknown photographer, Hamo Thornycroft as Proteus from ‘Two Gentlemen of Verona’, ca. 1880s. Photograph, Thornycroft Archive, Henry Moore Institute, Leeds.
Unknown photographer, Agatha Cox (later Thornycroft), n.d. Photograph, Thornycroft Archive, Henry Moore Institute, Leeds.
The Thornycroft Gown:
a Liberty Dress?
In 1884, the same year [that E.W.] Godwin began the ‘Art Dress’ department at Liberty, the sculptor Hamo Thornycroft and his wife Agatha created what is for me the quintessential example of an Artistic Dress. According to their daughter (Mrs W.O. Manning), who donated the dress to the V&A in 1973, this was Agatha’s wedding gown.
Both Hamo and Agatha had a well-established interest in both historic costume as well as dress reform, judging from photographs. One photo shows a young Hamo dressed as Proteus from Two Gentleman of Verona (perhaps for a fancy dress party or a tableau vivant); and another photo shows an even younger Agatha as the Queen of Hearts. But costume balls were a popular pastime for many Victorians; more interesting is a photo of the couple taken in 1884, probably shortly after their marriage [below]. Hamo wears the sort of comfortable outdoors attire that Godwin and [Walter] Hamilton spoke of… checked breeches tucked in woollen socks, a loose comfortable coat, and a short-brimmed cap. Agatha wears what was certainly a ‘rational’ ensemble: a loosely-fitted walking dress (comfortable but not straying too far for the fashionable silhouette), and a long mantle-like overdress topped with a shorter cape that ties artistically at her throat. From her posture and the fit of the outfit it is plain to see she wears neither corset nor bustle or crinoline; one imagines she has chosen the woollen combinations promoted by dress reform societies. It is a comfortable and candid portrait of the young couple.
Unknown Photographer, Hamo & Agatha Thornycroft, 1884. Photograph, Thornycroft Archive, Henry Moore Institute, Leeds.
The Thornycrofts’ affection is plain in a series of letters written by Agatha that relate to the Artistic Dress she wore for her wedding. [At the time of writing this thesis], the gown… was labelled by the V&A as a Liberty dress, designed by Hamo Thornycroft. Specifically, the object file list[ed] ‘Liberty & Co. Ltd’ as the maker, then in the summary states:
The dress was made and worn by the wife of Sir Hamo Thornycroft (1850-1926). He was a sculptor and designed it for her. They were both interested in the dress reform movement and conceived the dress in accordance with the movement’s principles so it did not restrict the waist and arms…
The sewing is not professional and the dress has been altered. The Liberty material is a thin, probably Indian, washing silk of a type that seldom survives.[1]
The information in the entry is conflicting: the maker is listed as Liberty, yet the discussion states it was made by Agatha, and designed by Hamo. It also states the sewing is not professional, which would also negate authorship of Liberty & Co. as maker.[2] This conflictive listing is possibly due to cataloguing necessities mixed with information given to the museum by Mrs Manning. However, new evidence gives us a clearer picture of how the gown came to be: there is reference to it in three letters written by Agatha, which were not accessible until their daughter left Hamo’s personal papers to the Henry Moore Institute in the 1980s.
In a letter dated Jan 1st 1884, just after their engagement, Agatha wrote to Hamo while she was staying outside of London:
Dearest. The box from Liberty caused me a great deal of surprise and delight at your kindness in sending me such a lovely present. The stuff is beautiful and it has often been my ambition to have a dress of it but I cannot help reproaching you at the same time for indulging me to such an extent… The question that arises is, how can I get it made into a wearable form? I am afraid the genius of the Tonbridge dressmakers is not sufficiently great to induce me to let them try their hands on it. But I cannot yet make up my mind on such a weighty and important subject. You see women are all alike; just as vain as one another! I have been considering already the design of the dress but I think you must help me with that. It requires great consideration…
A week later, she wrote:
I am going to get my dress made by a dress maker here, the only one I think who can carry out instructions at all near the mark. I shall keep her well under my eye which will be possible if she comes here to work. I think the conclusions we came to very satisfactory with regard to the dress the other night. I have a good idea of what it should be like. It was sweet of you to make so much trouble about it.
Then finally, on the 21st, she wrote to thank Hamo for lace and mittens he sent, and observed ‘The lace is lovely and will suit the Liberty gown.’[3] Thus these letters offer us rare insight into one way these clothes were made. It is also interesting to note that she refers to this as a ‘Liberty gown’, although it was not made by Liberty & Co., merely the fabric came from there.
The final design encompasses all the aspects of a proper Artistic Dress. It is made of fine, lightweight silk, dyed in natural colours – an off-white, with a turquoise blue stripe (now badly faded so the dress appears ivory, see detail images). One can imagine it being worn with the turquoise jewellery that was very popular with the artistic set at this time. The dress design the Thornycrofts concocted was modest yet graceful, and in fact, according to V&A Senior Textile Conservator Frances Hartog, the stitching itself is rather basic, hinting perhaps at the uncertain skill of that Tonbridge dressmaker.[4]
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The bodice has a low square neckline and is decorated only with flattering smocking that gives it a rustic charm. Wilson tells us that smocking was revived in the 1870s ‘to give movement to the sleeves and yoke, and by the 1880s it was fashionable for conventional dress.’[5] I would add to this that smocking also had a specific social significance related to both a more picturesque, romantic (and historicised) attitude; and the joy and usefulness of handicraft promoted through the Arts and Crafts movement.[6] Smocking is beautiful and useful, a kind of ornamentation of which Godwin and his followers approved; that it becomes a popular feature of Artistic Dress (and subsequently fashionable dress) is unsurprising.
The back is adorned simply with pleating and a row of functional buttons. The sleeves are fitted above and below the elbow, allowing the coveted freedom of movement. The skirt is beautifully draped in the front in a Greek style that hints at coming Edwardian fashion, while the back is gathered up to create an illusion of a soft bustle, without the added weight of a crinoline. The overall effect is an elegant gown which in its healthful and aesthetic qualities embodies all the tenets of Artistic Dress, without straying too far from the fashionable Victorian silhouette.
Thus it stands that this dress, although made from Liberty silk, is not actually a ‘Liberty & Co.’ brand or make of dress, as we might understand it today. It is an excellent example, however, of the way in which Liberty supported the home arts industry through providing materials for Artistic Dress. They were proactive and even didactic in this respect, as the next chapter’s investigation of their catalogues, reveals.
And so, the object file has been updated to reflect that the maker is actually unknown, although it does still list Liberty as a ‘maker’. I can only imagine this is for search purposes, as I doubt they are trying to credit Liberty’s, but rather flag it up for researchers due to the fabric. It might easily cause confusion, however, another reason I’m glad the notes have been updated with the letter excerpts I provided.
The V&A was incredibly generous in allowing me access to this dress – and incidentally, I always find them wonderfully helpful and open to researchers. So I can’t really be upset that the they didn’t credit me with discovering this material (and the online catalogue isn’t an appropriate space for that anyway) – because the goal of research, at least for me, isn’t glory, but furthering knowledge. (Well, maybe just a little glory. Or a steady paycheck at least.) And now, the V&A know a bit more about this wonderful specimen, and future researchers can use this material to develop their own work. And I feel pretty good about that.
Notes
[1] From the online catalogue for: Liberty & Co. Ltd. (maker), Dress (Thornycroft/Liberty), Striped washing silk, with hand-smocked and gathered sleeves, lined with cotton, ca 1885, T.171-1973, Victoria & Albert Museum, http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O13850/dress/.
[2] For more on amateur and professional sewing and dressmaking at this time, see: Burman, The Culture of Sewing.
[3] Liberty & Co. Ltd. (maker), Dress (Thornycroft/Liberty).
[4] Frances Hartog, related to the author in a conversation at the Victoria & Albert Museum, March 2010.
[5] Wilson, “Away with the Corsets, On with the Shifts,” 21.
[6] For more on this, see: Parker, The Subversive Stitch; and: Janice Helland, British and Irish Home Arts and Industries, 1880-1914: Marketing Craft, Making Fashion (Irish Academic Press, 2007).
James Craig Annan, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, ca. 1893. Modern bromide print, 200 x 151 mm, 7 7/8 x 6 in. National Portrait Gallery, Purchased 1984 [NPG x132515]I promise, if you read through a bit of exposition, the reason for the title shall become clear.
It has been a shamefully long time since I have updated this blog. Blame teaching. Speaking of which, it has been a fantastic year in that regard, capped by the fact that last Autumn I actually taught a class on Artistic Dress at my lovely institution, the Glasgow School of Art. I have been meaning to write about it for ages, but now it has been so long, I feel I must do it in an all-too-brief recap.
Essentially, rather than write an essay, I decided my students should revive the late Victorian GSA tradition of performing Tableau Vivant (a bit more on this below). They formed groups and came up with these ‘living pictures’ to display aspects of Artistic Dress in their own view. I couldn’t have been more impressed with the results, and luckily, while I was dashing about ‘directing’ the event (we invited staff, students and friends to come in and see the performance), my fantastic colleague Bruce Peter got pictures! Please click on through to see this event for now, and I will make a dedicated post to this wonderful class in the very near future.
I wished to mention it here, however, as it somewhat related to the real purpose of this post. I recently participated in a wonderful panel at the 39th annual Association of Art Historians conference. Organised by Colin Cruise and Amelia Yates, it was on the subject ‘Image, Identity and Institutions: the Male Artist in the 19th century.’ I was honoured to be included in the group, which also included my former advisor and mentor Margaret F. MacDonald. Likewise, it is always great to see old friends and meet new Victorianistas, and in the latter category, Sian White has written a very nice review of our panel at her blog – read Part I here, and Part II, which includes my paper, here.
I did consider posting the text of my paper here, ever-wary of the balancing act between being magnanimous with my research, and saving the ‘juicy bits’ for the book. But as this was written to be delivered in a talk, and there are so many lovely images of even lovelier artists, I thought I might try something a little different. I made a little documentary.
This certainly has its glitches, and in the spirit of keeping it close to the original, this is really just an elaborate powerpoint with voiceover and some other fancy additions that iMovie allows. It is also read at an easier pace than conference time limits encourage. So, if you happen to have a spare 32 minutes and 20 seconds, and you want to learn a little more about bohemians, dandies, fantastic moustaches and floppy ties (and where the title of this post comes from), please sit back and watch.
And please do leave comments here, I’d love to know what people think!
What does this mean? Well, this is, ostensibly, the 164th birthday of the Pre-Raphaelites. It is being celebrated across the web, at the instigation of the fabulous Pre-Raphaelite Society, who have prompted all of us to twitter away with the hashtag #PRBday – lots of great posts already!
And the reason we celebrate? Well, it isn’t just that we PRB fans are salivating that the amazing new Pre-Raphaelites: Victorian Avant-Garde is opening this week (why yes, I will be at the private view!)…
…but we are also celebrating the formation of the PRB itself. The Tate has provided this great post with a bit more detail here, but the nutshell is that in September 1848, a group of young art school friends in young John Millais’ bedroom at No. 7 Gower Street, to write their great declaration that cemented the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood into being.
They were looking rather rumpled and smudged with charcoal, gathered upstairs in Millais’ bedroom on a rainy afternoon as they passionately contrived the list of ‘Immortals’ they wished to emulate and, one day, be considered amongst. Mrs Millais came up the stairs and knocked on the door: ‘Boys, would you like some tea?’ And Millais, feeling over-excited and a bit angsty, rolled his eyes at his friends and shouted in a stroppy tone, ‘Not now mum, we are writing our manifesto!’
Anyway, that’s how it happened in my head.
The manifesto as we know it comes from William Holman Hunt’s personal account of the group’s birth and development in his book Pre-Raphaelitism and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. It is something I always go over with my students as it is a great way to see what their interests were, and how the PRB moniker is something of a misnomer. Here is the pertinent excerpt:
Once, in a studio conclave, some of us drew up a declaration that there was no immortality for humanity except that which was gained by man’s own genius or heroism. We were still under the influence of Voltaire, Gibbon, Byron, and Shelley, and we could leave no corner or spaces in our minds unsearched or unswept. Our determination to respect no authority that stood in the way of fresh research in art seemed to compel us to try what the result would be in matters metaphysical, denying all that could not be tangibly proved. We agreed that there were different degrees of glory in great men and that these grades should be denoted by one, two, or three stars… Gabriel wrote out the following manifesto of our absence of faith in immortality, save in that perennial influence exercised by great thinkers and workers:We, the undersigned, declare that the following list of Immortals constitutes the whole of our Creed, and that there exists no other Immortality than what is centred in their names and in the names of their contemporaries, in which this list is reflected:
Jesus Christ****
The Author of Job***
Isaiah
Homer**
Pheidias
Early Gothic Architects
Cavalier Pugliesi
Dante*
Boccaccio*
Rienzi
Ghiberti
Chaucer**
Fra Angelico*
Leonardo da Vinci**
Spenser
Hogarth
Flaxman
Hilton
Goethe**
Kosciusko
Byron
Wordsworth
Keats**
Shelley**
Haydon
Cervantes
Joan of Arc
Mrs. Browning*
Patmore*
Raphael*
Michael Angelo [sic]
Early English Balladists
Giovanni Bellini
Georgioni
Titian
Tintoretto
Poussin
Alfred**
Shakespeare**
Milton
Cromwell
Hampden
Bacon
Newton
Landor**
Thackeray**
Poe
Hood
Longfellow*
Emerson
Washington**
Leigh Hunt (Author of Stories of Nature*)
Wilkie
Columbus
Browning**
Tennyson
What ho! Who is that on the list? Why, it seems to be Raphael himself! And with a star of greatness no less! In fact, the list is interesting in that roughly half of these Immortals are post-Raphael, and several are contemporaries (I spy Tennyson, Thackeray, and Browning to name a few). The list is fascinating, and worth far more discussion that I offer here – I welcome observations in the comments!
But in keeping with the theme of this blog, I thought I might talk a little about how these young lads likely dressed in these early days. Much of this is really reportage from other researchers, and a lead in to my own observations on ‘Pre-Raphaelite Dress’ as it has been called. From the thesis…
From what we know of their early days, the men who formed the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood dressed eccentrically by Victorian standards, as many art students of their gender did. Deborah Cherry points out that this unconventional dress ‘could not be adopted by women artists for whom, unlike men, disorderly conduct or dishevelled appearance endangered respectability and professional activity.’[1] This statement is true in general, however some marginal groups of women artists, such as Barbara Leigh-Smith (later Bodichon) and Joanna Boyce, close friends of Rossetti and Siddal, also participated in early emancipation activities which found them, at times, wearing reform dress, such as bifurcated skirts. Nonetheless, male artists enjoyed much more flexibility in what would be accepted as merely artistic eccentricity in dress, as the visual canon of the slightly unkempt, baggy-clothed and scruffy male artist was well established through portraiture (and particularly self-portraiture) via the likes of Rembrandt, Salvatore Rosa, and countless others; as well as through subsequent caricature resulting from these signifiers.
1. Dante Gabriel Rossetti, ‘Self-Portrait’, 1847 Pencil and chalk, 197 x 178mm. Lady Lever Art Gallery, Liverpool [LL3624].
At the outset, the men of the Pre-Raphaelite circle seemed to wear typical dress for their social standing. However it was reported early on by Hunt in his recollections that Rossetti favoured baggier, ill-fitting clothes and had an unkempt, devil-may-care appearance. In her biography of the artist, Jan Marsh used these descriptions to sketch a romantic vision of Rossetti entering the Antique School of the Royal Academy in 1846:
As the freshman arrived, the other students turned, seeing among the group a slight, dark lad, with loose-curled masses of rich brown hair, strong brows over deep-set dark-ringed eyes and a rather scowling, intense expression… He dressed with deliberate slovenliness – a none-too-clean collar, unblacked boots, a well-worn coat. Sartorial disregard was common for art students, but his was marked.[2]
Herbert Watkins, ‘John Everett Millais’, 1854. Albumne print, 32 x 31.5cm. Watts Gallery, Compton [COMWG.501].
It may be that some of the reason for his appearance was due to the somewhat impoverished condition of his family at the time, however Rossetti managed to turn this into an artistic affectation rather than a blemish. This vision can be seen in the romanticized self-portrait drawing Rossetti made in 1847 [fig. 1]. Rendering himself as a poet, the young, clean-shaven face, sensuous mouth, and thick, windswept hair (his brother William called them ‘elf-locks’)[3] is singular in the artist’s self-portraits; modes of representation left for the female muses he will come to paint. However the folded collar and short bow tie, which might to the modern eye look old-fashioned, are important to note, for they depart significantly from the preceding decades’ fashion for high collars and elaborately tied cravats. Rossetti’s tie here is that of an artist: short, loose, and practical. Likewise, in an 1854 photograph by Herbert Watkins, Millais wears a loose ‘floppy’ bow tie [fig. 2.] as becomes common practice for many male artists, as we shall see. In fact, the wearing of the tie was, for men, a language of its own, signifying a range of attitudes from refinement to decadence. The artistic dress of men, when not bordering on fancy dress, was often found in more subtle ways, in the details and accessories of their clothing, and the way they wear their hair – particularly facial hair. This will again become evident as the century progresses.
Thus in the years 1848 – 1860, the Pre-Raphaelites and their circle were not necessarily establishing new modes of dress, or ‘alternative vestimentary movements’ as has been suggested by author Alice Mackrell,[4] but rather they served as models for a kind of sensibility that influenced later modes of dressing in their own group and others through the artworks they created, their interest in historical costume, as well as the affectations they presented in their sartorial habits. The anecdote Marsh has presented is not an indicator of Pre-Raphaelite Dress, but rather of Artistic Dress; or rather the dress of an artist, which affected an air of rebellion via ‘sartorial disregard’ that would become more extreme in subsequent decades…
As this passage may suggest, I was surprised to discover that through my research, I came to the conclusion that there really wasn’t such a thing as ‘Pre-Raphaelite Dress’ as it has come to be known. While the lads sat around writing up their manifesto on who they wished to emulate, they never did make a credo on how they would dress, at least none that still exists. Theirs was a much more fluid mode of sartorial self-expression, and though perhaps self-conscious, I’m not convinced it was overly contrived.Most references to ‘Pre-Raphaelite Dress’ are in regards to the associated women, and I have an even bigger issue there. Stella Mary Newton made an in-depth discussion on it in her seminal 1974 text Health, Art, and Reason, and nearly every text since has simply followed her research, which in essence stated that Pre-Raphaelite Dress meant loose gowns with sleeves that allowed freedom of movement. Taking that as my own starting point, I began to really examine extant images, and, to overly simplify several chapters of my thesis, I found that actually, these women favoured a far greater variety of gowns than has been attributed them. I believe these overly-simplified observations are based on images made of them in modelling costumes, and cannot be viewed as reliable indicators of how they might have gone about day to day, at least in these early days of Pre-Raphaelitism.‘Spring (Apple Blossoms)’ [1859, oil on canvas, 176 x 113cm, Lady Lever Art Gallery, LL3624] by Millais is an example of an artwork that is often cited to show that Pre-Raphaelite women wore loose-fitting unconventional dress. In fact, the cut of many of these dresses is rather mainstream. Where it departs from convention is that some of these young women appear to be sans-crinoline. Is this due to their habits, or is it modelling costume, the romantic choice of the artist for his particular vision?
So where did this myth come from? According to, well, me:
Some art historians state the origins of this form of dress with conviction: ‘the first women to wear, and therefore promote, Pre-Raphaelite dress were the models of these artists, notably Elizabeth Siddal and Jane Morris.’[5] This statement is exemplary of the assumption that Pre-Raphaelite women, especially those who sat for Rossetti, wore clothing in their everyday life similar to that in which they sat as models. These dresses are usually described as being loose in the bodice and sleeves to allow more freedom of movement than more restrictive fashionable dress, and worn without corsets or crinolines. The fact that the aforementioned women were all skilled seamstresses who made modelling costume for Rossetti and other artists has reinforced the notion that they must have made similar clothing for themselves that they wore as everyday dress. Altogether, these views have led to the popular conclusion that the Pre-Raphaelite circle regularly dressed in a radical bohemian fashion, the consequence of which can be seen in the completely unconventional costume and styling used in the 2009 BBC television drama Desperate Romantics. While perhaps capturing the rebellious spirit of the group for a fictionalised account, the visual portrayal of the characters – particularly of Elizabeth Siddal, walking through the streets of London with her hair down and dressed in tunic tops with skirts [fig. 3] – would have been more than shocking to Victorian society; it would have been disgraceful. Siddal, a respectable if poor member of the lower middle class, and a milliner (dressmaker) besides, would have hardly appeared publically in such a fashion…
Amy Manson as Elizabeth Siddal and Aidan Turner as D.G. Rossetti in Desperate Romantics, episode one. BBC, 2009. Apparently, Lizzie shopped at Camden Market.
It is possible to conclude that Pre-Raphaelite Dress was not an actual sartorial movement, but rather is a retrospective term that was adopted nearly three decades after the formation of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood to describe clothing seen first in image, which inspired what we should be more properly calling Artistic Dress. Nonetheless, while the category ‘Pre-Raphaelite’ was used a descriptor for art and decoration in this period, one of the earliest print references to ‘Præ-Raphaelite Dress’ was made by Mary Eliza Haweis in her 1878 articles for Queen, a ladies’ magazine,[6] and subsequently reprinted and elaborated on in her 1879 text The Art of Dress[7] and related 1880 article in The Art Journal.[8] Even in these early days, she indicates semiotic problems with the term:
In the first place, what is meant by ‘Præ-Raphaelitism’ in Dress? If one were required to furnish an exact definition of that term it would be very hard; for everybody who catches it up means a different thing. But we may say, in a general way, that the present movement in dress under the above name is gradually spreading; first among art circles who have discovered, then among æsthetic circles who appreciate, the laws which govern beauty; and it represents the common reaction that follows any bad system carried on long… But this loose term ‘Præ-Raphaelite’ is extremely misleading. [9]
Haweis thereby applies the term to a style which we now label Aesthetic Dress; but which she herself goes on to suggest should rather be called ‘Art-Protestant’. She argues that this term is more accurate, as the clothing in question references historic costume from ‘roughly speaking, the period of Edward III’s reign, from 1327 to 1377,’ rather than just costume before the age of Raphael.[10] Although Art-Protestant never really caught on, Haweis’ desire to more accurately define this style again points to the semiotic confusion of these terms.
We have much more evidence of others, such as the ladies of the Holland Park Circle, wearing these loose and bohemian gowns, and later, within the scope of burgeoning Aestheticism we see more of this form of dress in Pre-Raphaelite circles (I’ve written a little about both here). Ultimately, this is why I favour and argue for the use of Artistic Dress as the term to encompass all these activities, as the others can be so confusing and misleading.
Semantics, perhaps, but I’m a word nerd.
[1] Deborah Cherry, Painting Women: Victorian Women Artists (Routledge, 1993). 91. Quoted in Colin Cruise, “Artists’ Clothes: Some Observations on Male Artists and Their Clothes in the Nineteenth Century,” in The Gendered Object, ed. Pat Kirkham (Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 1996). 114.
[2] Jan Marsh, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Painter and Poet. 19-20.
[4] Alice Mackrell, Art and Fashion: The Impact of Art on Fashion and Fashion on Art (London: Batsford, 2005), 88.
[5] Sophia Wilson, “Away with the Corsets, On with the Shifts,” in Simply Stunning: The Pre-Raphaelite Art of Dressing (Cheltenham: Cheltenham Art Gallery & Museums, 1996), 20.
[6] (Mrs) Mary Eliza Haweis, “Pre-Raphaelite Dress,” The Queen, February 9, 1878. See chapter five for a detailed discussion of Haweis’ writing.
[7] (Mrs) Mary Eliza Haweis, The Art of Dress (London, 1879).
[8] (Mrs) Mary Eliza Haweis, “The Æsthetics of Dress,” The Art Journal (1875-1887) 6, New Series (January 1, 1880): 129–131.
I was remiss in posting last month! Luckily, the thought-provoking Kirsty Walker has made a call to art detectives today at her blog The Kissed Mouth, which has inspired this post.
For those of us who study Aestheticism, white dresses can be tricky. When we see a romantic vision of a woman in a billowing white dress, we often wish to label the lovely lady ‘Aesthetic’. But the truth is, if you begin to study public collections of Victorian dress, as I have been lucky enough to do, you begin to see that there were in fact a plethora of white dresses from this period – many of which were cut in mainstream styles. Let’s think about it logically… you are a fashionable Victorian woman, ca. 1860, who wouldn’t be caught dead in public without proper undergarments (corset, crinoline, etc.). It is summer. It is hot. What colour are you going to wear? And won’t you also pick a light, frothy fabric like muslin that won’t weigh you down even more than you already are?
Just as many of us still see white as a ‘summer’ colour, this was the case with Victorian dress. So while colour can certainly signify Aesthetic (sage green, sunflower yellow, etc.), I don’t think white can necessarily give us that definitive clue. With white dresses, I’ve started to look more carefully at the cut, and perhaps more specifically the styling, to try and think about whether a dress might be classified as Aesthetic, Artistic, or both.
This isn’t to say that white dresses aren’t an important part of studying Artistic Dress, they have in fact featured prominently in my research.
2. G.F. Watts, Sophia Dalrymple, 1851-53, oil on canvas, 198 x 78.7 cm. Collection: Watts Gallery, Compton (COMWG.200).
To begin, I think the original ‘Woman in White’ from this period was Watts’ Portrait of Sophia Dalrymple. Dalrymple, one of the famed and beauteous Pattle sisters (which included Julia Margaret Cameron), enjoyed an element of priviledged freedom in the upper class but artsy home of her sister, Sarah Prinsep, at Little Holland House. (The Pattles are central to my own research, but for now, if you are intrigued to know more, I’ll refer you to Caroline Dakers’ excellent book The Holland Park Circle.) From my thesis:
…as early as 1851, Watts painted Sophia Dalrymple in a flowing white gown, more than a decade before other famous paintings of women in white, such as Whistler’s Symphony in White, No. 1: The White Girl of 1864 [fig 3], or Rossetti’s Lady Lilith of 1864-68 [fig. 5], and yet the Holland Park Circle has not been given much consideration in literature on the origins of Aesthetic Dress. And Watts’ was not the only ‘woman in white’ portrait of this era: in 1858-9, future Holland Park resident and Royal Academy president Frederic Leighton painted his favourite model, the exotic Italian Nanna Risi, in a full sleeved pristinely white garment in Pavonia [fig. 1 above].[1]
What is particularly noteworthy in studying many of these depictions of women in white – and where the portrait examples here depart from Kirsty’s example – is that most are ‘uncrinolined’, as contemporaries put it. It is in fact this ‘uncrinolined’ state which has given the female wearers of Artistic Dress their rather bohemian reputation. What follows is an excerpt from PhD chapter three (Artistic Dress and Second-Wave Pre-Raphaelitism), titled ‘(Uncrinolined) Women in White’, which discusses this form of styling as well as the possible symbolic implications of white:
In her 1889 autobiography, the poet Mary Howitt described a studio party given by Rossetti in 1861:
The uncrinolined women, with their wild hair, which was very beautiful, their picturesque dress and rich colouring, looking like figures out of the pre-Raphaelite pictures… I can think of it now like some hot struggling dream, in which the gorgeous and fantastic forms moved slowly about. They seemed all so young and kindred to each other, that I felt as if I were out of my place, though I admired them all.[2]
3. James McNeill Whistler, Symphony in White No. 1: The White Girl, 1862, oil on canvas, 213 x 108cm. Collection: The National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.
In February 1862, George du Maurier described a visit paid to him by his friend ‘Jimmy’ Whistler, and his mistress (and model) Joanna Hiffernan:
Joe came with him to me on the Monday afternoon, got up like a duchess, without crinoline—the mere making up of her bonnet by Madame somebody or other in Paris cost 50 fr. And Jimmy describes all the Parisians on the boulevard as aghast at ‘la belle Anglaise!’[3]
Here, at the start of this decade, we have two instances where models – women entrenched in artistic circles – are publicly seen without their crinolines. As evidenced in the images of the Pattle sisters during the 1850s, this was not a new, but a growing trend amongst this set… Pre-Raphaelite painting also depicts uncrinolined costume, but the historic and literary subject matter (in essence, fantasy) allowed for these liberties. Watts’ 1851 portrait of Sophia Dalrymple, however, pushes these boundaries in that the distinction is blurred between a possibly classically attired subject, and an intimate contemporary portrait. Is Dalrymple in costume, or is she simply dressed in the kind of garments she and her sisters wore in their intimate circle? Was the costume of art bleeding into life at the start of the 1860s, as these quotes suggest?
It was an exciting time to be in Holland Park, as was discovered by a new denizen of the circle: James McNeill Whistler. After seeing Whistler’s At the Piano (1858-59) at the Royal Academy, Watts brought him to the attention of Luke Ionides, the now adult son of Watt’s early patron Alexander Ionides. Through this connection, Whistler began to gain commissions from – and thereby entrance to – the Holland Park Circle. There, he would have seen at least paintings of women in white, Watts’ portrait of Dalrymple and possibly Leighton’s portrait of his favourite model Nanna Risi as Pavonia. Perhaps following in their footsteps after spending time at Little Holland House, Whistler also painted Hiffernan in a white gown, but certainly with a more daring edge. Symphony in White, No. 1: The White Girl (fig. 3), painted during the winter of 1861-62, shows her in a simple white dress falling straight to the floor, ‘uncrinolined’ and with ‘wild hair’, much like the descriptions in the aforementioned quotations. Alongside Manet’s Déjeuner sur l’hérbe, it caused a sensation when it was exhibited at the 1863 Salon des Refusés, for the depiction of her was surely a signifier of her fallen state.
4. James McNeill Whistler, Symphony in White No. 2: The Little White Girl, 1864, oil on canvas, 76 x 51 cm. Collection: Tate Britain, Bequeathed by Arthur Studd, 1919 (NO3418).
In terms of symbolism, The White Girl has been discussed in numerous other places—in particular, the signification of her white dress, from its alignment to virginal purity to its relationship to Wilkie Collins’ The Woman in White, published just two years prior, has been of interest.[4] In terms of costume, it was given careful attention alongside Whistler’s other two ‘symphony’ portraits of Hiffernan in white, Symphony in White, No. 2: The Little White Girl (1864) [fig. 4] and Symphony in White No. 3 (1865-67), in Patricia de Montfort’s 2003 essay ‘White Muslin: Joanna Hiffernan and the 1860s.’[5] Drawing connections between these depictions and domesticity, rather than the typical ‘fall from grace’, de Montfort points to the deliberate choice of fabric colour in relation to Whistler’s own aesthetics:
Cambric, the finely woven linen Whistler used in The White Girl, and muslin, a sheer plain-weave cotton of soft textureused for Hiffernan’s dress in The Little White Girl, are fabrics associated with modesty and home life rather than showy public display. In 1864 white was the antithesis of the new chemically produced aniline dyes in colors such as electric blue and magenta, popular for modish outdoor and day wear… Whistler sought out the appropriate fabric to create the luminescent effect he desired.[6]
Furthermore, the dress in The White Girl evokes a sense of modesty in its high neckline and long sleeves, which is not far removed from respectable conventions of the time. It is the styling, however, which raises eyebrows, the loose hair, the lack of supportive undergarments. But it is worth considering whether the ‘whiteness’ of this dress renders it more respectable – and perhaps even ‘artistic’ rather than scandalous, even though it is worn in such a fashion. In terms of the signification of the dress, another ‘white girl’ painted in the same year makes for an interesting comparison: Rossetti’s Lady Lilith [fig. 5], which was, in fact, painted for Frederick R. Leyland, a patron who would become critical for Whistler in the coming years.
5. Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Lady Lilith, 1868, oil on canvas, 37 1/2 x 32 in. Bancroft Collection, Delaware Museum of Art.
Rossetti’s painting depicts Lilith, the original ‘fallen woman’, at her toilette, and was modelled first by Fanny Cornforth, and then Rossetti later repainted the face with that of Alexa Wilding. She is depicted en déshabillé at her dressing table, surrounded by symbolic flowers as she combs out her rich red hair. Lilith is dressed in a loose white gown save for a red ribbon wrapped about her wrist, which falls suggestively along her lap. White roses surround her, with a single, large red poppy rising prominently in front of her in the lower right. All of these suggest the complex purity/impurity Venus connotations of this first wife of Adam. Although Rossetti’s intention is to depict a ‘Modern Lilith’, the fantastical aspects of his rendering of space relate a more timeless aspect.
In contrast, both of Whistler’s white girls present such complexity in a somewhat more subversive manner, and through the use of less-revealing Victorian dresses, and more contemporary, recognisable spaces, which are of course suitable in that they are contemporary subjects rather than a historical motif. However, both The Little White Girl and Lady Lilith have a similar inventory of objects: mirrors, flowers, and a decorative vase. But whereas Rossetti’s is an undefined, almost claustrophobic space, Whistler presents us with an elegant example of Japonisme that would have been much more familiar and comfortable to the Victorian viewer (despite the ‘vague sense of time and place’[7] Whistler creates) – a real scene, as it was painted in Whistler and Hiffernan’s own dining room in their house on Lindsey Row. One final, important touch separates the Little White Girl from Lilith: the former wears a wedding band, which we are visually drawn to by her gaze and the positioning of her finger on the mantle.
It could be argued that both artists use the white dresses symbolically to raise questions about the sexual state of the subject. In each case, the white dress is entrenched in the symbolism of the painting, and as such become little more than another prop for artistic expression. But perhaps that is a way to think about the same dresses as worn by these women in their real-world social interactions? Would Joanna Hiffernan, so exquisitely (if controversially) articulated by Whistler’s hand in these images, not wish to be seen as the White Girl ‘in the flesh’, as it were? In particular, being from a working class background, a certain self-fashioning – a sense of artistic style – would perhaps be the thing that admitted her to the aforementioned social circles Whistler inhabited.
6. James McNeill Whistler, The Artist in his Studio, 1865/66, oil on paper mounted on panel, 62.9 x 46.4 cm (24 3/4 x 18 1/4 in.). The Art Institute of Chicago, Friends of American Art Collection (1912.141).
It would possibly be ill-conceived to consider these works as examples of Hiffernan’s personal sartorial codes, were it not for Du Maurier’s observations, the Victorian cut of the garments, and perhaps one final bit of visual evidence: in Whistler’s 1865-6 painting The Artist in his Studio (fig. 6), Hiffernan reclines in the dress from The White Girl (or one very similar), casually chatting with another model holding a Japanese fan and wearing a loose pale pink gown reminiscent of a kimono. It evokes the sense of a moment captured (albeit clearly posed and conceived by the artist) which allows us to consider that this might be an example of her style, either of her own doing or at the hands of Whistler.
And the dresses are not historic (or fantasy) costume, but examples of actual Victorian garments.
7. Dress, 1864, bleached tartalan muslin with matching sash. Collection: The Museum of the City of New York, Gift of the Misses Braman (47.83.1ab). Image source: Catalogue of the exhibition Whistler, Women and Fashion (see link in text below).
In fact, de Montfort identifies a dress very near identical to the one in The Little White Girl, in the collection of the Museum of the City of New York (identified by De Montfort in the catalogue Whistler, Women and Fashion) [fig. 7]. The dress is of bleached linen tarlatan, with ruched sleeves and bodice, likely a day dress made for walking in the summer months. The full skirt would have certainly been worn with a crinoline. In Whistler’s painting, however, we can see from the fall of the skirt in the painting that Hiffernan posed without crinoline; the ruched fabric provides what fullness is there. Is this, perhaps, an example of what du Maurier witnessed? She is without crinoline in the other symphonies, as well as The Artist in his Studio. Whistler, like Rossetti, was very interested in the fall of drapery, something which the ballooning effect of hoops or crinoline would have detrimentally marred. Is it too great a leap (perhaps too lacking in feminist principles) to suggest that the women who associated with these artists would have shared such aesthetics – whether under the influence of the ‘male gaze’, or through their own senses of beauty and comfort?
But to return to the styling of the models, the white dresses are in my view representative of developing Artistic fashion, and as well foreshadowing the coming demise of the bell skirt. Hiffernan wears them sans crinoline, just as Pre-Raphaelite women in the 1860s were doing in studio parties, and the Pattle sisters doing in their ‘At Homes’ from the 1850s on … The complex relations between artist and model, male and female, woman and muse, were crafting an intriguing dynamic whereby garments of costume were becoming garments of use.
Perhaps that is the case in Kirsty’s painting. If this work was indeed painted towards the end of the century, we would have been well into the phase where ‘costume’ (as we understand the term today), and Artistic Dress, had influenced mainstream dress to the extent that such a garment might be worn by a fashionable-but-mainstream lady, with just a touch of bohemian in her soul.
[1] We see what is likely the same garment as an undertunic in Leighton’s A Roman Lady (La Nanna) [Philadelphia Museum of Art], painted around the same time.
[2] Mary Botham Howitt and Margaret Howitt, Mary Howitt: Volume 2: An Autobiography (Cambridge University Press, 2011).
[3] Margaret F MacDonald, “East and West: Sources and Influences,” in Whistler, Women, & Fashion, ed. Aileen Ribiero, Margaret MacDonald, and Susan Grace Galassi (New York: The Frick Collection and Yale University Press, 2003), 85.
[4] See for example Robin Spencer, “Whistler’s ‘The White Girl’: Painting, Poetry and Meaning,” The Burlington Magazine Vol. 140, no. No. 1142 (May 1998): 300–311.
[5] Patricia de Montfort, “White Muslin: Joanna Hiffernan and the 1860s,” in Whistler, Women, & Fashion, ed. Aileen Ribiero, Margaret MacDonald, and Susan Grace Galassi (New York: The Frick Collection and Yale University Press, 2003), 77–91.
James Abbott McNeill Whistler Symphony in Flesh Colour and Pink: Portrait of Mrs Frances Leyland, 1872-1873 oil on canvas 77 1/8 x 40 1/4 in. (195.9 x 102.24 cm) Henry Clay Frick Bequest. Accession number: 1916.1.133
This post is a bit more personal, inspired by a brief moment I had at work this week.
I haven’t yet made the official ‘I’m a Doctor!’ post because, in all honestly, it’s all happened so fast that I don’t think it has actually sunk in. I’ve celebrated properly with drinks & friends, but I haven’t rushed to change my title at the bank. Life just keeps ticking on. It did occur to me, however, that while I thanked everyone including my local café in my acknowledgements, I did forget to extend my gratitude to one unusual source: Mrs Frances Leyland. Or rather, her gorgeous portrait, Symphony in Flesh Colour and Pink, Portrait of Mrs Frances Leyland, painted by James McNeill Whistler.
It was nearly a decade ago, around New Year’s Eve 2002, that I was wandering the Frick and stumbled upon her. It was a point in my life where I was questioning many things: my job, my relationship, whether I wanted to continue living on the West Coast. After a museum career focused on children’s and science centres, I missed my first love, art history. The trip to New York – a place I hadn’t been in many years – underscored this vacancy.
But as an undergrad, I’d been focused on the Renaissance. I didn’t even discover the Pre-Raphaelites until my last term, and their own interest in topics like Dante captured my fancy. But I hated Whistler. I found him incredibly boring.
James Abbott McNeill Whistler Harmony in Pink and Grey: Portrait of Lady Meux, 1881-1882 oil on canvas 76 1/4 in. x 36 5/8 in. (193.68 cm x 93.03 cm) Henry Clay Frick Bequest. Accession number: 1918.1.132
So when I rounded that corner and turned to see Mrs Leyland poised so elegantly in a frothy pink gown, I was a bit flabbergasted. It was one of those moments, when you connect with a work, with its sheer beauty, and your head begins to buzz. I didn’t recognise it was Whistler, because I knew little of him, and was very surprised – chagrined even – when I read the label. When I could tear myself away, I moved to look at the other figures in the room, including her husband F.R. Leyland and Lady Meux. I found them beautiful, but they didn’t quite hold the power of Mrs Leyland.
I spent a great deal of time in that room, almost until closing. It was evening, and there was a string quartet in the courtyard, so I’m certain that lent some magic and romance to my musing. I’ll leave aside some other more personal contributing factors, but in short, I left the Frick that night knowing it was time to return to my study of art.
On my way out, I noticed a poster for an upcoming exhibit, Whistler, Women and Fashion. I was sorry I wouldn’t be in New York for it, but I ordered the catalogue as soon as I returned home to the Pacific Northwest.
Fast forward a decade. When I moved to Glasgow, it was to study Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh. But it was a different Margaret MacDonald who induced me to stay. I hadn’t known the the University had the holdings of Whistler’s estate, nor even that the Curator of that fantastic exhibit – the other Margaret – was ensconced at the University of Glasgow. I didn’t know she and I would get on like a house on fire, and that she be willing to take me on and be such a shrewd and kind mentor. And I certainly didn’t know, that night almost a decade ago, that the vision of Mrs Leyland would put me on this extraordinary path.
This week, while at work doing some editing for the Whistler Etchings Project, I found myself, once again gazing at the same poster I’d seen at the Frick. It is pinned on a wall in the project office. I turned to Margaret – busy editing etching catalogue entries herself – and said ‘She’s the reason I’m here, you know.’ And I briefly related my tale. She smiled and said that Mrs Leyland was the reason she was still there also. That essentially, through her many years of research, that painting, the beauty of it, was one of the things that kept her going as well. I guess it is just one of those exquisite works that, when things begin to get challenging, tedious, or frustrating, you can look at and say ‘Oh yes, that is why I do this.’
Study for 'Symphony in Flesh-colour and pink: Mrs F. R. Leyland', 1871-74 pastel and charcoal on paper Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, Texas, Purchase with funds provided by the Council of the Amon Carter Museum of American Art, accession no. 1990.0.
And I should add, to keep this on ‘blog topic’, that the dress – oh, the dress! – certainly makes an appearance in my research. It is brief, for those who wrote about it in the exhibition catalogue, particularly Frick Curator (and exhibit co-Curator) Susan Grace Galassi, did a fantastically thorough job. The Tea Gown Mrs Leyland wears was in fact designed by Whistler, he left many sketches of its development. An excerpt from my research:
The pastels show Whistler experimenting with different styles for the dress, incorporating historicised details such as standing collars, puffed sleeves, and the Watteau pleat which is the focus of the final painting, but which does not appear in all of the sketches. Several of the sketches show the front of the gown as having the material crossing diagonally over the bodice, as a fichu might; whether this is the case in the final garment, we cannot tell. In one sketch, Whistler designed the skirt in elaborate flounces tucked up with rosettes. Although he experiments with lemon yellow and orange accent colours, the material is always diaphanous. We do not know the order of the drawings, as they are undated, nor do we know who exactly constructed the gown, and when (although there are some instructional notes made in French on some of the drawings). It would be interesting to know how much the selection of material shaped the final garment, which is viewed from the back and arranged in a graceful waterfall of pale pink silk chiffon, accented with blossoms to balance the ones appearing on the branches entering the canvas at left.
Although we cannot see the whole gown, we can tell that it is comprised of a long-sleeved robe of chiffon, a mass of it gathered between the shoulder blades in a Watteau pleat, but the rest of it a single sheer layer. It is worn over a sleeveless white underdress, leaving the bare skin of the arms visible under the sheer sleeves, which are bound with a golden brown cord from a rosette at the shoulder, then wound down to be tied at the wrist. It is further trimmed with rosettes on the bottom of the train, but whether these are accurately depicted or artfully arranged accents of Whistler’s brush is uncertain. The model’s hands are clasped behind her back, her head turned, and her neck exposed. Galassi notes, ‘In Japanese dress, the back of the neck—considered an erogenous zone—is often revealed.’[1] This form of draping, evocative of a kimono, underpins much of Whistler’s aesthetic taste in women’s vestments, and in what he preferred to pose them. In light of his amorous nature, the erotic aspect of these garments certainly was not lost on him.
We sadly don’t know who made this dress in the end, or what happened to it. I myself question whether it was even wearable in public, or concocted merely for the fancy of paint and canvas. It is sensuous, suggestive, alluring, and not at all the thing to be worn on the street! But this is part of the painting’s seduction, and an element of the overall ‘Symphony’ which continues to draw me (and others) in, and wonder…
So thank you Mrs Leyland… well, ok, to be fair, thank you Mr Whistler… for making such an exquisite Symphony that would inspire me to follow my own heart’s desire.
[1] Susan Grace Galassi, “Whistler and Aesthetic Dress: Mrs Frances Leyland,” in Whistler, Women, & Fashion, ed. Margaret F. MacDonald, Susan Grace Galassi and Aileen Ribiero (New York: The Frick Collection and Yale University Press, 2003), 114.
‘Portrait of William Morris’ by George Frederic Watts, oil on canvas, 1870. 25 1/2 in. x 20 1/2 in. (648 mm x 521 mm). Collection of the National Portrait Gallery, London, Given by George Frederic Watts, 189.7 NPG 1078.
When I came to the subject of Artistic Dress, I had a great many assumptions about it, particularly in terms of who wore it, and who promoted it. Some of them were correct, and some I have found through my research to be misconceptions. While those who associated themselves with the Arts & Crafts Movement were certainly amongst the artistic dressers, I was surprised to learn that the man at the heart of it, William Morris, was not an active or vocal promoter of alternative fashion, certainly not to the extent as his friends and colleagues like G.F. Watts, E.W. Godwin or Walter Crane. In honour of his birthday yesterday, I thought I’d share a small excerpt of my research which relates one of the only instances of his publicly speaking on the subject.
The rare example comes from a lecture given on the 21st of January 1882, at the Birmingham and Midlands Institute, titled ‘Some of the Minor Arts of Life’. This was an expanded and refined version of his earlier 1877 lecture ‘The Lesser Arts’, and was published later in the year as part of a collection titled Lectures in support for the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, of which Morris was a central patron (he had helped to found it with friends in 1877).[1] One of the areas which Morris decided to expand his discussion was on dress, a subject on which he had heretofore been largely silent, at least in print. By the time of this talk, Artistic Dress had become something of a fusion of practical principles of health, mingled with the sensual ideals of Aestheticism. In his personal life at least, Artistic Dress was prevalent in the wardrobe of his wife Jane (although not in the manner often thought—this is a lengthy discussion and will be the subject of a future post), and by this time, that of his daughters.
‘Portrait of May Morris’ by Frederick Hollyer, platinum print, 22 March 1886. 5 7/8 in. x 3 7/8 in. (148 mm x 98 mm) image size. Collection of the National Portrait Gallery, London, Given by Robert R. Steele, 1939, NPG x19854.
In fact, an 1886 photo of May Morris when she was a young woman and budding designer, taken by Frederick Hollyer, depicts her as a Pre-Raphaelite illustration come to life. She is seated in profile facing left, her right elbow propped on the armrest of an Arts & Crafts settle. She rests her chin delicately on that hand while reading a page that she holds in her left. She wears a dark-toned velvet Artistic Dress, which is of a comfortable but not overly roomy fit, with a round collar and loose but not full sleeves that taper to wrist, where the sleeves of her white-toned underdress (possibly linen) are turned back over the velvet sleeves to form a cuff. The dress is otherwise plain, accentuated only by a thick almost choker-like necklace and hair arranged in a Greek style with a thin fillet. Her dress is both beautiful (aesthetic) and useful (practical), in line with the Arts & Crafts principles with which she was raised. While May was clearly following in the footsteps of her mother fashion-wise, she was equally her father’s daughter in regards to her Socialist-Utopian principles and her own artistic skill.
Morris himself was not particularly known as an eccentric dresser, unless one considers his pragmatic and unkempt style, which seems more down to the practicalities of being an artist than any overt fashion statement. His posthumous biographer, John Mackail, doesn’t have a lot to say about his dress, save a few passages which underscore that his clothing choices were unique, but related to his life as an artistic practitioner:
His dress always seemed full of his individuality. Certain youthful indiscretions in the way of purple trousers are remembered as having belonged to the time of the Oxford Brotherhood. But his ordinary dress had no special quality except great simplicity and untidiness… it was only in conventional dress that he looked really peculiar… In his suit of blue serge and soft felt hat, he had something of the look of a working engineer and something of that of a sailor… Indeed a stranger might very well, not only from his clothing, but from his rocking walk and ruddy complexion, have taken him for a Baltic sea-captain. In those days he had not yet adopted the blue cotton shirts which, in later years, became his invariable dress and almost of the essence of his appearance.[2]
‘Portrait of William Morris’ by Frederick Hollyer, platinum print, 1874. 5 3/8 in. x 3 3/4 in. (135 mm x 96 mm). Collection of the National Portrait Gallery, London, Given by Robert R. Steele, 1939. NPG x3762.
It was perhaps Morris’ practical approach to dress which kept him from including it in his writings and lectures in a focused manner until the 1880s, when it had become a widely discussed topic. In his lecture on the ‘Lesser Arts’ of ‘pottery and glass-making; weaving, with its necessary servant dyeing; the craft of printing patterns on cloth and on paper; furniture;’ he opted to also include ‘the art of dress’ with ‘fear and trembling,’ no doubt an amusing reference to the heated fashion debates that were prevalent in the 1880s (between Whistler & Wilde for example), and of which his audience would have been keenly aware. [3] He begins with a criticism of male dress, which like his peers centres on the drab tones and the problematic chimney-pot hat. However he approaches the subject with humour and charm marked with self-awareness that he is, perhaps, not the most fashionable of commentators:
The last of the Lesser Arts I have to speak of I come to with some trepidation; but it is so important to one half of the race of civilized mankind, the male half, that I will venture. Indeed I speak of the art of dress with the more terror because civilization has settled for us males that art shall have no place in our clothes, and that we must in this matter occupy the unamiable position of critics of our betters. Rebel as I am, I bow to that decision… I have not near enough courage even to suggest a rebellion against these stern sartorial laws; and after all one can slip into and out of the queer things with great ease, and that being the case, it is far more important to me what other people wear than what I wear: so that I ask leave to be an irresponsible critic for a few moments. [4]
He then moves on to a more detailed discussion of female dress, but rather than merely attacking the corset and crinoline (which he does) through a promotion of classical and historic costume, he offers a reasoned and humorous look at more recent dress history, calling mid-eighteenth century dress ‘a kind of enchanted wood of abominations into which we need not venture.’ He showed an appreciation for the subsequent ‘graceful and simple’ style that followed ‘just before the French Revolution’; then blames the ‘affectations’ and ‘extravagances’ of Napoleonic period Neoclassical garments for the conservative backlash of fashion in the 1830s, calling their ‘grim modern respectability’ a ‘dire revenge.’ From here he discussed the ‘two periods of feminine dress’ he has lived through: first of the 1830s-40s (‘I well remember its horrors’), and then the period of the crinoline, about which he states ‘I have good hopes that one may say that the degradation of costume reached its lowest depth in this costume of the Second Empire.’
From here, Morris again takes a rather unique tactic to his advice on dress, one which stems from his Arts & Crafts ideals and the larger Socialist concerns that underpin them. He presents similar arguments in terms of female dress as Haweis did, particularly in relation to freedom, individuality, and resistance to the recommendations of milliners; however his language seems more sympathetic, almost feminist, in appreciating the new choices for female garments and what they mean for women’s emancipation:
…when woman’s dress is or may be on the whole graceful and sensible (please note that I say it may be); for the most hopeful sign of the present period is its freedom: in the two previous periods there was no freedom. In that of grim respectability a lady was positively under well-understood penalties not allowed to dress gracefully, she could not do it; under the reign of [the] crinoline, if she had dressed simply and beautifully, like a lady, in short, she would have been hooted in the streets; but nowadays, and for years past, a lady may dress quite simply and beautifully, and yet not be noticed as having anything peculiar or theatrical in her costume. Extravagances of fashion have not been lacking to us, but no one has been compelled to adopt them; every one might dress herself in the way which her own good sense told her suited her best. Now this, ladies, is the first and greatest necessity of rational and beautiful costume, that you should keep your liberty of choice; so I beg you to battle stoutly for it, or we shall all tumble into exploded follies again.
Morris encourages a sense of freedom and individuality and assures women that they will not be looked at askance for their choice in clothing. This assurance is somewhat questionable if we are to judge by the parodies of Punch (see below), and perhaps indicates the artistically privileged and liberal milieu in which Morris (& Company) dwelled.
Morris’ advice isn’t entirely altruistic, however, and is as much rooted in aesthetics as it is in social equality. Specifically, he shows a kinship with many of his fellow artists in his love of drapery, however he manages to cleverly link the desire to see the draped female form with the idea of maintaining her freedom:
Then next, your only chance of keeping that liberty is, to resist the imposition on costume of unnatural monstrosities. Garments should veil the human form, and neither caricature it, nor obliterate its lines: the body should be draped, and neither sewn up in a sack, nor stuck in the middle of a box: drapery, properly managed, is not a dead thing, but a living one, expressive of the endless beauty of motion; and if this be lost, half the pleasure of the eyes in common life is lost… the fashionable milliner has chiefly one end in view, how to hide and degrade the human body in the most expensive manner… Now, ladies, if you do not resist this to the bitter end, costume is ruined again, and all we males are rendered inexpressibly unhappy. So I beg of you fervently, do not allow yourselves to be upholstered like armchairs, but drape yourselves like women.
It is both an empowering and a sensual speech by Victorian standards, suggesting that to resist the unnatural aspect of the corset in favour of clothing which falls about the body (in a manner pleasing to the male gaze, the ‘pleasure of the eyes’) is to dress like a woman. Not a girl, not a lady, but a woman. This is arguably an innovative tactic, very different than previous experts who have focused on deprecating Victorian fashion (Godwin for example, though he also was a champion of drapery); or handed down advice from on high as an authority (as is the case with Mrs Haweis, who certainly wished to empower female choice, but did so in a high-handed manner). Morris seems to be appealing directly to women as both a respected design expert, and a man who who unabashedly loves the female form. [And one of course thinks of the photographs of his wife (below)… however this particular image was taken in 1865, and is problematic for reasons I promise to present in another post… but also for its association with Morris’ friend and Jane’s presumed lover Rossetti. For more on this, see Kirsty Stonell Walker’s excellent post on Morris.]
John R. Parsons, ‘Jane Morris’ (in the garden of Tudor House, styled by D.G. Rossetti). Albumen print from wet collodion-on-glass negative. 195 mm x 129 mm. Collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum, museum no. 1741-1939.
Morris never seemed to make a direct, focused contribution on the subject of dress outside of including it as one of the ‘Lesser Arts’, and as we know his focus in this area was centred more on decorative textiles. However it is worth noting that this highly influential figure found the subject important enough to insert himself into the Artistic Dress debate at this time, even if briefly, to lend his voice to the cause of change in sartorial practice for the betterment of art and life.
[3] William Morris, “The Lesser Arts of Life (A Lecture Delivered 21 January 1882),” in Lectures on Art Delivered in Support for the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings (London: Macmillan and Co, 1882), 174–232.
'A Private View at the Royal Academy, 1881' by William Powell Frith, 1882-83 (exhibited 1883). Oil on Canvas, 60 x 114cm (23 5/8 x 44 7/8 in.). Private Collection.
One of my favourite Victorian paintings is a bit of a standalone in that it is not made by one of my favourite painters. Don’t get me wrong, Frith is certainly a great talent, and works like The Railway Station certainly deserve some extended gazing. But I simply love A Private View at the Royal Academy, 1881 for reasons that might be obvious to those interested in the subject of this blog; but also simply as a Victorian fangirl – oh to be amongst that crowd!
Frith has included some truly wonderful examples of Aesthetic Dress, which were all the rage at the time of painting, 1882-83. One of the main problems I am addressing in my research are definitions of these classifications of dress, particularly between Artistic and Aesthetic Dress, which are often used interchangeably. Without going in to too much detail just now (I’ll save this discussion for a longer entry later), I’ll simply state that I think Aesthetic Dress ‘happens’ in a very specific time and place, logically during the period when Aestheticism was a popular trend, roughly 1870-85 (and I do mean roughly). Frith’s painting records this, and it was one of those ‘must include’ examples in my research. There is a well-repeated quote from Frith’s biography that he made this painting specifically to record the ‘aesthetic craze’, but I was interested to read the longer account of it in his Reminiscences (1888):
Seven years ago certain ladies delighted to display themselves at public gatherings in what are called æsthetic dresses; in some cases the costumes were pretty enough, in others they seemed to rival each other in ugliness of form and oddity of color. There were – and still are, I believe—preachers of æstheticism in dress; but I think, and hope, that the preaching is much less effective than it used to be. The contrast between the really beautiful costumes of some of the lady habituées of our private view and the eccentric garments of others, together with the opportunity offered for portraits of eminent persons, suggested a subject for a picture, and I hastened to avail myself for it. Beyond the desire of recording for posterity the aesthetic craze as regards dress, I wished to hit the folly of listening to self-elected critics in matters of taste, whether in dress or art. I therefore planned a group, consisting of a well-known apostle of the beautiful, with a herd of eager worshippers surrounding him. He is supposed to be explaining his theories to willing ears, taking some picture on the Academy walls for his text.[1]
That ‘apostle of the beautiful,’ seen in the foreground at centre right, is of course Oscar Wilde, who in 1881 was a new neighbour to James McNeill Whistler & Dante Gabriel Rossetti in Chelsea. By the time the painting was displayed, however, Wilde had already conducted his lecture tour of America in service of Gilbert & Sullivan’s satirical operetta Patience, which famously lampooned Aestheticism (which was unfamiliar to Americans, thus Wilde was sent to ‘educate’ them, ostensibly so they understood the farce). Frith surrounds Wilde, who is still in his bachelor days, with adoring ladies who seem to hang on his every word. The gathering would have no doubt caused Wilde’s more sceptical critics to chuckle when it was displayed in 1883.
Frith’s painting echoes the kind of reportage seen in fashionable magazines of the day, which catalogued in great detail the clothing seen at social events like private views. In addition to capturing a quintessential gallery opening, Frith achieved his goal of ‘recording for posterity the aesthetic craze as regards dress’ by rendering three excellent examples of ladies’ Aesthetic Dress, which were surely painted from life (more on this below). At left, two ladies are presented in green and ochre (along with a child in an earthy orange dress with matching bonnet), all natural colours lauded in Aesthetic circles. The woman at left wears a golden ochre gown shaped by loose pleats, and styled so that it is gathered up to reveal an ivory ruffled satin underskirt. The green dress worn by the woman at right is a nod to a more medieval style, with sleeves that are puffed and slashed at the top then tight to the wrist; a low, square décolletage over a high-collared chemise; and a long, comparatively straight skirt with a castellated hem. Her dress is accessorised with a sunflower to match the gold trim, and she wears a dark green velvet beret-like cap.
One of Wilde’s admirers wears the third and perhaps most unique of the dresses. Seen from the back, it employs a Watteau pleat which, rather than trailing over the long train of the Princess-line gown, is looped up through a strap that cleverly buttons to the side of the skirt. The sleeves are ruched above and below the elbow, and loose at the shoulder and elbow, which is both pleasing to the eye and functional in providing freedom of movement. The gown is otherwise unadorned, the warm salmon tone and the draping of the fabric itself providing the only ornamentation.
In placing these unique gowns side by side with more traditional Victorian ladies’ dress, with their hourglass corseted figures and pronounced bustles, this painting demonstrates the differences between mainstream and Aesthetic fashion that would cause further debate in the 1880s. As well, Frith hints at the mounting strain within the artistic circles themselves. Wilde is dressed in an earthy brown suit, much like that of Leighton (who stands at the very centre, his back to us), but he has a signature lily tucked in his buttonhole as a nod to his Aesthetic tendencies. He does, however, also wear a silk top hat like many of the other proper gentlemen (an item he would later criticise), perhaps most notably like the older, more conservative John Everett Millais (at far right). We cannot read too much into Wilde’s placement midway between Leighton and Millais; although Leighton became the President of the Royal Academy in 1878, Frith wasn’t to know Millais would be his successor, even if briefly, upon Leighton’s death in early 1896 (Millais died later that year). However, Wilde’s costume as rendered by Frith, and as well Frith’s intention for representing him as noted above, seems to almost foreshadow the coming debates of the mid-1880s Wilde would engage in, very publicly, with Whistler on dress and the arbitration of taste. Furthermore, Frith’s comments in his autobiography, made in 1888, echo Whistler’s jibes at Wilde (though he didn’t call him by name) made in his famous Ten O’Clock lecture in 1885.
In his Reminiscences, Frith also includes comments on his experience with a model, Jenny Trip, in his recollections of making this work, who he employed to pose for one of the aesthetic ladies. He states that he was not a great employer of models, and only did so for the aesthetes, which reveals that although the more famous people sat for him, he did not recruit ‘actual aesthetes’ for these figures, but composed them himself. I found the exchange rather engaging, and thought I might repeat it here:
Miss Trip was a trial to me. Never did she ‘come to her time.’ Her conversational powers were nil. Nothing that I could say seemed to interest her in the slightest degree, and, unless I spoke, silence reigned. She had a pretty, pensive face, on which a smile seemed as much out of place as it would be on the face of a mute at a funeral. This most provoking smile was more especially irritating when it was the only reply to a terrific scolding.
‘What is your father?’ said I to her one day, when she came into my studio two hours late.
‘He is a stoker on the Chatham and Dover line.’
‘How early does he get to his work?’
‘He goes out at five in the morning.’
‘Indeed,’ said I; ‘and his daughter—that is you—cannot get to your work by ten. You ought to be ashamed of yourself.’
Not a word of excuse. She smiled. I made a mental vow that, once the æsthete was finished, my acquaintance with Miss Trip should finish too. That happy moment came at last; there was but little to do, and for that little my smiling friend was not absolutely necessary.
‘As you find it impossible to get here by ten, perhaps you can come at two to-morrow?’
She said she could, and smiled.
I then told my servant that unless the young lady was within a quarter of an hour of the time fixed, she was not to be admitted.
I allowed two o’clock to pass, and at three, my servant happening to come into my room, I asked after Miss Jenny Trip.
‘She has just been, and gone again, sir.’
‘What did she say when you told her you had orders to send her away because she was after her time?’
‘She didn’t say anything, sir; she only smiled.’[2]
It is probably wrong of me, but after that tale, I find I rather like Miss Jenny Trip.
You can read Frith’s recollections of painting ‘The Private View’, and the rest of his Reminscences, at archive.org.
[1] William Powell Frith, My Autobiography and Reminiscences (London: Richard Bentley & Son, 1888), 441.
'Mrs Luke Ionides' by William Blake Richmond, London, 1882. I've used this image throughout this blog as it is, for me, one of the best examples of Artistic Dress.
Much of my research deals with trying to clarify a definition for Artistic Dress, as it has been treated in vague and conflicting manners. I was interested to note that the Berg Fashion Library now has a brief definition for it, where it was not included in their recent ‘Companion to Fashion’ publication (rather, Aesthetic Dress was the main inclusion in this area). Berg’s concise definition isn’t too far from what I am trying to establish, although mine is of course crazy-PhD sized. But for the record, Berg states:
Artistic dress
Source: Berg Dictionary of Fashion History
(F, occasionally M)
Period: 1848–ca. 1900.
The influence of the pre-Raphaelite brotherhood, a group of painters founded in 1848 by Holman Hunt, Millais and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, on clothing was reflected later by Walter Crane: ‘…the dress of women in our own time may be seen to have been transformed for a while, and, though the pendulum of fashion swings to and fro, it does not much affect, except in small details, a distinct type of dress which has become associated with artistic people…’ (1894, Aglaia, p. 7). The ideal pre-Raphaelite woman had thick, softly curling hair, a pale complexion, strong features and a taste for unstructured garments in natural colours. This alternative style, one of the first successful movements antithetical to fashion, continued and evolved, and was caricatured and satirized, but the ideas of comfort and timeless elegance influenced designers such as Paul Poiret and Mariano Fortuny in the 20th century.
![Unknown (possibly H.T. Prinsep), Sarah Prinsep and G.F. Watts, ca. 1850s. Copy photograph from an Emery Walker negative. National Portrait Gallery, London [NPG 953/8].](https://robynecalvert.files.wordpress.com/2021/02/91bdf-sophia-watts.jpg)
![John Parsons, Jane Morris posed by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 7 July 1865. Albumen print from wet collodion-on-glass negative, 253 x 200 mm. Victoria and Albert Museum [820-1942].](https://robynecalvert.files.wordpress.com/2021/02/878f7-3-28-jm-2010el5810_jpg_l.jpg)
![2. G.F. Watts, Sophia Dalrymple, 1851-53, oil on canvas, 198 x 78.7 cm. Collection: Watts Gallery, Compton [COMWG.200].](https://robynecalvert.files.wordpress.com/2021/02/4f75b-18-sophia-dalrymple.jpeg)
![Hamo & Agatha Thornycroft, Dress (possibly a Wedding Gown), 1884. Striped washing silk from Liberty, with hand-smocked and gathered sleeves, lined with cotton, Victoria & Albert Museum, Given by Mrs W.O. Manning [T.171-1973].](https://robynecalvert.files.wordpress.com/2021/02/c2511-2006av6121_jpg_l.jpg)
![James Craig Annan, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, ca. 1893. Modern bromide print, 200 x 151 mm, 7 7/8 x 6 in. National Portrait Gallery, Purchased 1984 [NPG x132515]](https://robynecalvert.files.wordpress.com/2021/02/82628-mw150575.jpg)
Robyne Calvert 
