Interesting Women of the Nobility

[grandduchessella]

At a suffragette rally--she and her mother were both devoted to the cause:

[Mari]

 On Weeping at the altar.... I found this on the Aunulment!
"the annulment, to the surprise of many, also was fully supported by the former duchess's mother, who testified that the Vanderbilt–Marlborough marriage had been an act of unmistakable coercion. "I forced my daughter to marry the Duke," Alva Belmont told an investigator, adding: "I have always had absolute power over my daughter."
On Consuelo's image:
Consuelo Vanderbilt was a great beauty, with a face compelling enough to cause the playwright Sir James Barrie, author of Peter Pan, to write, "I would stand all day in the street to see Consuelo Marlborough get into her carriage."[6] Oxvord undergraduate Guy Fortescue later described how he and his friends were captivated by her "piquante oval face perched upon a long slender neck, her enormous dark eyes fringed with curling lashes, her dimples, and her tiny teeth when she smiled.[7] She came to embody the "slim, tight look" that was in vogue during the Edwardian era.[8]

The Gowns are so lovely I am trying to find out if Consuelo used Worth as her Designer?

[grandduchessella]

There was a rumor that Consuelo's wedding gown was by Worth but I don't think it was ever confirmed. Given the status of both Consuelo and Worth, you'd think that it would've been if it was true but I can't say.

Here's another Duchess (the Double Duchess of Devonshire and Manchester) in Worth from the 1897 Devonshire House Ball she threw.

Paris’ House of Worth fashioned a gown for the wife of the 8th Duke, Louise, Duchess of Devonshire, to be worn at Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee Ball, held at Chatsworth in 1897. The gown was made to transform the Duchess into Zenobia, the warrior queen of Palmyra. A concoction of cloth of silver, cloth of gold, brilliants, gemstones, and embroidered with more metalwork, the dress has a peacock feather fan motif at the hem and a train of turquoise velvet embroidered with gold.



This was the description in the Lafayette archive:

"Costume: "...The skirt of gold tissue was embroidered all over in a star-like design in emeralds, sapphires, diamonds, and other jewels outlined with gold, the corners where it opened in front being elaborately wrought in the same jewels and gold to represent peacocks' outspread tails. This opened to show an underdress of cream crepe de chine, delicately embroidered in silver, gold, and pearls and sprinkled all over with diamonds. The train, which was attached to the shoulders by two slender points and was fastened at the waist with a large diamond ornament, was a green velvet... and was superbly embroidered in Oriental designs introducing the lotus flower in rubies, sapphires, amethysts, emeralds, and diamonds, with four borderings on contrasting grounds, separated with gold cord. The train was lined with turquoise satin. The bodice was composed of gold tissue to match the skirt, and diamonds, and the front was of crepe de chine hidden with a stomacher of real diamonds, rubies, and emeralds. Jewelled belt. A golden crown incrusted with emeralds, diamonds and rubies, with a diamond drop at each curved end and two upstanding white ostrich feathers in the middle, and round the front festoons of pearls with a large pear-shaped pearl in the centre falling on the forehead." (The Times, 3 July 1897, p 12c)."

and the dress in b&w

[Martyn]

GDElla, thank you so much for posting that information about Louise's Worth costume - such a wonderful costume and it must have cost the earth!  Bearing in  mind that Louise was no longer young at the time of the Ball, she still looks pretty good in this wondeful get-up..........

[CountessKate]

I am trying to find out if Consuelo used Worth as her Designer?

Consuelo wore a great many Worth gowns as a debutante and as a young married woman.  As these represented her mother's and husband's taste, she wasn't actually very comfortable with them.  She wore a white tulle Worth gown at her coming out ball in Paris, chosen by her mother, and wrote of her early married life in her autobiography 'The glitter and the gold" "Since I had little experience in shopping, everything havin always been bought for me by my mother, Marlborough took it upon himself to display the same hectoring rights she had previously exercised in the selection of my gowns.  Unfortunately, his taste appeared to be dictated by a desire for magnificence rather than by any wish to enhance my looks.  I remember particularly one evening dress of sea-blue satin with a long train, whose whole length was trimmed with white ostrich feathers.  Another creation was a rich pink velvet with sable.  Jean Worth himself directed the fittings of these beautiful dresses, which he and my husband considered suitable but which I would willingly have exchanged for the tulle and organdie that girls of my age were wearing."  So it doesn't look as if Consuelo chose Worth voluntarily and as a designer he probably represented all that was wrong with her life at that time.  Though she still remembered the dresses as beautiful!

[grandduchessella]

GDElla, thank you so much for posting that information about Louise's Worth costume - such a wonderful costume and it must have cost the earth!  Bearing in  mind that Louise was no longer young at the time of the Ball, she still looks pretty good in this wondeful get-up..........

I had posted it on the Worth & Designers thread just for you Martyn! I then thought it might be of interest over here as well as the Double Duchess was a prior subject. 

[Martyn]

GDElla, thank you so much for posting that information about Louise's Worth costume - such a wonderful costume and it must have cost the earth!  Bearing in  mind that Louise was no longer young at the time of the Ball, she still looks pretty good in this wondeful get-up..........

I had posted it on the Worth & Designers thread just for you Martyn! I then thought it might be of interest over here as well as the Double Duchess was a prior subject. 

That is really kind of you.  I do appreciate it. 

I hope to be able to make a visit to Chatwsorth to see the dress itself, although this may take some organising, as it is not on display.  I didn't realise that the dress still existed until fairly recently.........

[grandduchessella]

You'd think (and hope) that many gowns such as this do still exist since they're basically works of art in themselves--I mean, it's not like you'd cut up a famous piece of artwork or something. I know that many do not survive and others are no longer in the hands of the original family but it's wonderful to think that some are still able to be exhibited for people to visit and study.

[gogm]

You'd think (and hope) that many gowns such as this do still exist since they're basically works of art in themselves--I mean, it's not like you'd cut up a famous piece of artwork or something. I know that many do not survive and others are no longer in the hands of the original family but it's wonderful to think that some are still able to be exhibited for people to visit and study.

It seems that designer dresses, especially Worths, were understood to be valuable heirlooms by the original owners and their successors. They show up on eBay and vintage clothing sellers from time to time with note-worth-y prices that show they're being treated and marketed as collectibles. Sometimes they wind up in museums, such as the ones the Museum of the City of New York displayed some years ago.

[TampaBay]

Even today, women who buy original true designer gowns save them.  Diana saved hers, Nan Kemper saved hers, Wallis saved hers. 

I wonder what happened to all of Wallis' clothes.  I know the wedding gown is in a museum.

TampaBay

[Martyn]

If I remember correctly, Diana Vreeland managed to convice Wallis in the 1960's to donate her unwanted clothing to the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC.

Accordingly, Wallis donated many items over the next decade, including the Mainbocher wedding ensemble.  Prior to this Wallis had been in the habit of clearing her closets twice a year of any garments that she no longer required.

It is worth remembering also that Wallis made it on to the list of best dressed women for over forty years, something that no other woman has managed to accomplish...........

[TampaBay]

Martyn,

Thanks for the info on Wallis' clothes!

TampaBay

[Martyn]

Martyn,

Thanks for the info on Wallis' clothes!

TampaBay

Most welcome, always.......

[TampaBay]

I have a hard time imagining Wallis ever giving anything away.  I do not picture her as that type.

I picture Wallis as the Nan Kemper type that collected great pieces then altered and retailored the not so great "thing of the moment" pieces.

TampaBay

[NoirFemme]

1911 coronation:

Actually, this is Edward VII's 1902 coronation. The pic with her sons is from George V's 1911 coronation.