Guest post by Celia Reyer, Visiting Fashion Curator and winner of The Costume Society’s Jubilee Award 2015.
The design inspiration I have found from the V&A Museum of Childhood Collections department has come from my research into the history of fancy dress and the practice of re-fashioning in early fancy dress. Fancy dress originated as an adult form of celebration. When children were introduced to it by their parents, they were dressed according to the parents’ discretion. “For the aristocratic children it was a time when court tailors and dressmakers were busy creating fabulous costumes with masques to match … The ball in Elizabethan dress given by the Marquise of Salisbury … described by the Author of Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll, in a letter to a friend of his: … these children’s costumes were exactly the same as those for adults, only a smaller scale” (Villa: 90).
Even though early fancy dress was made with more sustainable and with higher quality materials than it would be constructed from in the future, a great deal of early costumes did not survive to be collected because they were decorated and produced for an occasion, one time use. The materials were often then refashioned, which leaves us today at a loss for original objects to reference to. When I learned that fancy dress costumes and even theatrical and cinema costumes were collected far less than other categories of dress, I felt compelled to step back in time and demonstrate the re-fashioning process by using two V&A drawings of adult fancy dress and transforming them into children’s fancy dress. The process of re-fashioning is an example of a practice in history that inspired creativity. And, since the adults’ costumes consist of more material and trimming they could be re-worked to create a greater range of children’s costumes.
To assist in this exercise it was necessary to search the collections in order to fully grasp the fancy dress design and making process. Specifically, my interest was in who was involved in the making and conception. And, what particular costumes were created and how the fashionable fancy dress of the time spoke to the era. Nineteenth century costumes often featured particularly intricate designs and were of high quality when compared to their modern counterparts. This was due to the adult influence behind the selection of a child’s fancy dress, along with the relative exclusivity of fancy dress balls at the time. These costumes were often produced to similarly high standards as were used for fashionable clothing. During this time fancy dress was imaginative, colourful and embodied some of the most interesting aspects of re-fashioning. Inventiveness from the costumes in the collections sparked my attention. Children becoming involved in the making process allowed for an exciting collaborative activity allowing the child to be a part of the design process. With such a wide variety of choices in fancy dress, the child’s imagination was given the opportunity to develop. Categories of children’s fancy dress could range from animals, national, history, royal, military, seasonal, literary and fairy tales to name a few. In some cases, fancy dress themes could expose people to new things. At this point, the motive of fancy dress was no longer to project the adult’s dreams onto the child, but to allow the child to develop their own identity.
Using two V&A watercolour and pencil drawings from the Prints & Drawings study roomSorceress, ca. 1860s, Museum No. E.22069-1957 and the Rainbow, ca. 1860s, Museum No. E.22052-1957 as my muse I decided to create a story demonstrating how an adult’s 1860s fancy dress costume could have been refashioned into the style of 1880s children’s fancy dress.
I decided to create a story demonstrating an example of how an adult’s 1860s fancy dress costume could have been refashioned into the style of 1880s children’s fancy dress. The 1880s were an illustrious and adventurous decade for fancy dress. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert’s contributions to, and admiration of, creativity through this form of make-believe started two decades prior. “It was Queen Victoria that helped make the idea more popular. She encouraged her own children to dress up and delighted in making colour sketches of them in their costumes” (Jarvis: 20).
From these drawings, I have imagined a story where the mother, Annabelle makes fancy dress designs with her daughter, Annis, for a juvenile fancy dress ball she is to attend. Since Annabelle has two adult costumes, the Sorceress, the Rainbow, to work with and she decides to join them together and create two distinct fancy dress costumes for Annis. It is Christmas season and quite cold, so the first look Annabelle decides to make an 1880’s Canadian Ice Skater design, a popular trend in this decade.
To create this particular costume for Annis, I was first inspired by an unlabelled silhouette from a fashion plate. I then researched and found elements of the style illustrated in the silhouette and concluded it was a typical ice skater costume from the 1880s. Such costumes often included a muff (for keeping the hands warm) and a type of pointed hat known as a ‘sugar loaf’ hat. The skater dress was similar to the construction of a ‘princess foundation dress’ and consisted of a short full skirt, frill square neck and oversized sleeves. For my design interpretation I re-fashioned the majority of the materials from the Sorceress costume.
I imagined that Annis enters the fancy dress ball wearing her ice skater costume; she then removes her coat and swaps her ‘sugar loaf’ hat for a bicorne hat with pom-poms. This transforms her look to a Pierrette costume, mostly refashioned from the Rainbow costume, but some materials have been borrowed from the Sorceress costumes.
Can you see where I have re-fashioned the original fancy dress looks into the Ice Skater and the Pierette? This historical costume can be easily mimicked at home using your winter coat, fabric covered birthday hat and a matching tunnel of fabric making a muff.
The Pierrette fancy dress look was very popular in the 19th century. Similar variations include the male version – the Pierrot – and the Folly and Jester. The Jester, ca. 1864, Museum No. Misc.15-1965 was one of my first sources of fancy dress inspiration at the V&A Museum of Childhood. This once popular costume is uniquely shaped and features vibrant gores trimmed with gold and silver tinsel thread and brass bells. This look is completed with a hooked and peaked cap. This Jester costume is another example of a look that could have been refashioned from an adult costume such as this V&A fancy dress drawing of a flute player, ca 1860s, Museum No. E.22066-1957
The fashion plate, Pierrots & Pierrettes Fin de Siécle, Museum No. E.22397:67-1957 depicts a rare image of an entire family dressed in a similar theme of fancy dress costume. The costumes created for Annis were fashionable in the 1880s. Vibrant in colour, they are resourceful renditions of fancy dress costumes of the era. If the Ice Skater and the Pierette were popular children’s costumes of the 1880s, what were fashionable fancy dress styles in the early 20th century?
The wealth of information available in the V&A’s rich collections helped me immerse myself in the subject of refashioning and fancy dress in the 1800s. The V&A’s ‘Search the Collections’ website has images of objects that help bring concepts and activities like re-fashioning to life.
The watercolour and pencil drawing, Summer or Flora, Museum No. E.22058-1957 is an adult fancy dress costume that appears to be very similar in material and theme to the Fairy, fancy dress costume from the 1920’s, Museum No. Misc.105-1986.
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The categories of fancy dress costumes in the late 19th century are quite vast and certainly not lacking in imagination. Since fashion is continuously evolving, and this includes the fancy dress genre, I ask you to take a look at the 36 page photography album The Lord Mayor’s Children’s Fancy Dress Ball of 1936, Museum No. B.222:1-1996 and examine how fancy dress costumes are different from what we wear now? Do you see a difference in the themes, fabrics or designs themselves?
References:
Jarvis, A. (1984:pgs. 4, 20, 24-5) Fancy Dress. Shire Publications Essex, England.
Villa, N. (1989: 90) The Twentieth Century Histories of Fashion: Children in their Party Dress Zanfi Editori, Moderna, Italy.
