What an stunning portrait of Felix, thanks so much Robert.
I rather think that the fancy dress balls of the 1870-1880s were the continuation of the famous masqued balls that were the rage in Paris in the 1860's and that had been brought into fashion by the Empress Eugenie and Napolean III to imitate the slendour of Louis XII and Marie Antonette famous masqued balls. The great couture houses which were just coming into existence in the 1860's often designed many of the fancy dress costumes and some of them became quite famous, such as the costume Worth created for Princess de Mercy Argenteau for a famous fancy dress ball in Paris in the late 1880's or early 1890's.
By some quirk of fate I happened accoss the Princess de Mercy Argenteau's gowns stacked in three piles to the ceiling of a small antique shop in NYC off of 3rd Ave in the East Village. When I entered the shop my heart nearly stopped as I saw the three mountains of the Princess' exquisite gowns that spanned the late Nineteenth century, along with hundreds of hats and shoes. Princess de Mercy Argenteau had somehow become stranded in the United States during WWI and a society matron in Florida provided the Princess with a guest house to live in. The Princess remained there until her death in 1925 and the society matron sealed the guest house and it remained sealed until the owner of the estate was institutionalized. The entire contents of the cottage were then sold at auction and the owner of the antique store in NYC got everything in the cottage, with the exception of the furnishings, paintings and jewelry, for $1200.
The antique dealer didn't know anything about the Princess. I immediately called my friend, Bill Cunningham, who was the fashion correspondent for the Chicago Tribune and who lived in one of the five apts at the top of Carniege Hall and had a incredible collection period costumes which he later published in a book called, "Facades." He said that he would get a mutual friend to buy the gowns, as I was currently out of funds, but only if the famous Worth costume was among the Princess' gowns which he wanted. What seemed like a minute later a taxis pulled up outside the little costume shop and Bill jumped out and was as excited by the find as I was. Apparently the Worth's famous fancy dress costume for Princess de Mercy Argenteau was among her gowns because Bill made the phone call and he talked our mutual friend into buying the entire collection for $500. Those were the days when $500 was as inaccessable to me as $5,000,000 would have been.
But I was thrilled that the Princess' gowns were saved as a collection and that Bill got his Worth costume and I got to act as "curator" for the collection and learned a great deal about construction techniques etc. Unfortunately years later the entire collection of the Princess's gowns dissappeared during a mysterious fire in the building where they were being temporarily stored. I mourned their loss and to this day I am not all together convinced that they parished in the fire. Non-the-less the collection was heavily insured along with the other contents that were being stored so my friend profited by the loss. The thing is that I am sure that I saw some of the Princess' capes years later in a very high end Vintage clothing shop in Soho. You could not miss the quality of those gowns because they were all made by the finest fashion houses in Europe and just stood out for their exquisite use of color and their unique beauty and by their scale as the Princess, like the young Empress Alexandra, 5' 8" tall.
Well as usual I did somehow manage to get off the subject yet once again....but life is rich with all of its twists and turns and it is fun to recount some of it's aventures.....Griff
