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Victorian book graffiti

7 Feb

I’ve had this book, a copy of Harrington by Maria Edgeworth, for as long as I can remember, having pinched it from my grandparents’ bookshelves when I was a very little girl. I’ve never actually read the book itself but the writing inside, echoes of an earlier time, has always fascinated me.

In fact, I know this is sacrilege to many of you, but I often like to write in my own books (only the reasonably impressive ones) in the hopes that one day in the future someone will find them and wonder about me just as much I have wondered about Isabella and George.

George McHattie, Bishopmill, Elgin, January 2nd 1863.

Victorian maths!

Apparently the tilework was started in 1848?

This book belongs to George McHattie, 30 West High St, Bishopmill, 1863. Yes, of course I have had a look on Google Maps! Sadly, it looks like the original house has long since vanished to be replaced by a rather ugly bungalow. What a shame.

The back page.

Isabella Fraser, Lochside, Gilworth?, by Elgin, Morayshire, Scotland, March 14th 1859 is always modest. I’ve had a look for Lochside on Google Maps and suspect it might be a farm out in the sticks. In fact, I have a feeling that Lochside is where the book originated before it fell into the clutches of my family.

George McHattie, Bishopmill, Elgin, March 14th 1859, the moments fly a minutes gone.

We may learn two lessons – that time for self improvement may always be found and that true genius is always modest.

–

The moments fly, a minutes gone, the minutes pass – an hour has run, the day is fled – the night is here, thus flies a week, a month, a year.

–

Then let us present hours improve, and bear in mind how fast they move for if we now neglect to learn, the time we lose will never return.

More Victorian maths!

It would be lovely if it turned out they had married each other, but a very brief bit of research reveals that the most likely George McHattie and Isabella Fraser in Elgin during this period married other people. I need to look into it more thoroughly though so who knows?

I wonder if they ever read the book? Harrington is by all accounts a rather depressing tome, written from the point of view of a former and repentent anti-semite, about the ill treatment of Jewish people in England and apparently contains the first sympathetic Jewish character in English literature, which is a bit jaw dropping, isn’t it?

Unfortunately, my six year old has decided that this book is actually Tom Riddle’s Diary so to save it from an untimely demise by basilisk tooth, I’m going to have to hide it away!

Feminism and Jack the Ripper – a ramble through a disordered mind

31 Jan

I got yet another email last night accusing me of being ‘un-feminist’ because of my interest in Jack the Ripper and suggesting that I am contributing to the glamourising of what were clearly horrific crimes against women and subsequent fetishising of the victims. I say ‘yet another email’ as this isn’t actually the first time I have been accused of something along these lines and probably won’t be the last so I thought I’d publicly address it here or at least thrash it out in the open where you can all bear witness to my torturous thought processes and lack of any intellectual rigour.

I feel like I shouldn’t have to say ‘I’m a feminist’ because I don’t happen to think that’s how these things should work. I mean, I don’t have a very clear idea about what feminism is but I do have definite ideas about what it ISN’T. Or maybe I don’t. It’s all so NEBULOUS, you see. And also PERSONAL. All I know is that I am one. I suppose I’d feel the same sort of uncertain inarticulate mental stultification if someone asked me ‘Why are you a woman?’ I DON’T KNOW WHY. I JUST AM.

For the record, I also believe that not every woman is a feminist and that not all feminists are women. Make of that what you will.

However, unlike seemingly a lot of other people, feminism itself holds no fears for me. As I may have mentioned before, I was raised by my grandparents, both of whom grew up during the second world war and had, shall we say, rather NOVEL ideas about child rearing and, more crucially, femininity or rather the role of women. my grandmother was very fond of lecturing me about my ‘duty’ to any future husband (if I was lucky enough to ensnare one with my frankly limited charms because don’t forget I was ALSO getting regular bulletins about how unloveable I am too) and how I had to be at the beck and call of this draconian imaginary complacent entitled fuckwit and have his sodding dinner on the table when he got home from his bloody work and all sorts of nonsense like that.

However, luckily for me, my mother, whom I did see from time to time (although in a charmingly Catherine Cookson twist, I was raised to think that she was my sister – which gives me excellent fodder for my books as you can imagine) was what I consider to be Old School Feminist which served as an excellent antidote.

I love the way that whenever I feel stressed and unhappy, it is my grandmother’s voice I hear inside my head (not literally – I’m not certifiable), ordering me to clean and be obedient and subservient but when I’m feeling pretty good, it is my mother who inspires me. She’s pretty awesome and a great role model actually but I’ll talk about that some other time.

Now, before I go on, I did once upon a time announce that I wasn’t a feminist but in my defence it was said to someone who is not only as thick as mince but also well known for being a pompous buffoon fond of dreary, badly spelt self righteous pontificating and dismal condescending twaddle. They were spoiling for a fight and I was in a sufficiently bad mood to oblige. I felt bad though. I felt even worse when one of my very dearest friends jumped in to defend me against the inevitable attack. I am a bad person.

I’m not going to do that now though. Well, clearly I’m not.

The question about Ripperology and feminism does interest me though because it is something that makes me feel vaguely uneasy at times. I know that feminist groups have protested in the past about the Ripper exhibit at the London Dungeons and moved to have the name of the Ten Bells changed back again when it was briefly called the Jack the Ripper and that makes me wonder – am I the Enemy here? Am I the one using these horrible murders for entertainment and a bit of seedy gratuitous thrill seeking? Should someone be trying to stop ME?

I mean, I am not an academic and have no useful, official or sensible purpose to my interest in the Ripper case so does that mean I am being titillated by it in some way? Is this one of those situations where if you don’t have a good reason for being there, then you shouldn’t be there at all? I don’t think so – but then, for a start, I don’t see it as a game of whodunnit. As I have explained here before, I am not actually all that interested in unmasking the Ripper. Beyond a belief that he was a random nutcase and not the product of some macabre, internecine, Hollywood friendly conspiracy, I have very little interest in him at all. But even if I DID, would that mean that I am fundamentally some sort of raving misogynist? I don’t think so.

What I am actually interested in are his victims and their lives as they offer a snapshot into existences that ordinarily would be hidden from view in their own time and then lost to history. What happened to them was dreadful beyond all comprehension and I suppose I see it as my own personal mission not to forget them and to make sure other people don’t either. I also have a more underhand agenda of using their unhappy stories of relationship breakdown, dependancy, poverty and addiction to remind people of why we NEED welfare in this country. I’m always saying that I judge societies by the way they treat their weakest members and I’m afraid, based on the lives of Polly Nichols, Annie Chapman et al, I’m judging YOU, Victorian England, VERY HARSHLY INDEED.

Do I fetishise them? Well, I’d like to think that I don’t. The definition of fetishising is to hold an intense, excessive and irrational devotion to something. I don’t think that’s the case here. However, yes, I do refer to myself as a Victorian Prostitute Re-enactor and, yes, I am writing a book about the Ripper murders. The re-enactment is a sort of in-joke based on my previous experiences of re-enactment in my less creaky youth and also because one of my friends and I thought it would be fun to dress up in Victorian rags and hang around Whitechapel at night. I suppose there’s an element of reclaiming the streets there and also a nod to the fact that most re-enactment appears to involve men with long hair recreating past wars, bloodshed and hideous conflict so why shouldn’t we, as women, dress up to recall to mind our own bloody history or to show a bit of across the centuries solidarity with our unfortunate nineteenth century sisters?

I also like to dress in Victorian clothes and as I’m a bit scruffy, that’s always going to veer towards the more bohemian and down at heel styling, I’m afraid.

As to the book, well, it seems that what I like to write about are women, their relationships with each other and how they are affected by traumatic events. I’ll own up now that if you are expecting a big fat whodunnit and a dramatic unmasking at the end of my Ripper book, you’ll be sadly disappointed as the book isn’t really about him – it’s about the effect his actions have on the lives of a trio of fairly different young women and, in essence, explores more fully the ideas that I don’t really have the space or energy to expound in full in this here blog post.

In a nutshell then, I don’t believe that, done properly, Ripperology is intrinsically ‘un-feminist’ or women hating or misogynistic or using murder victims as some sort of bizarre historical snuff porn. Not all Ripperologists are the same though – some enjoy the thrill of the chase and get really, really excited about each and every new theory about the Ripper’s identity; others are in it because they like the whole ambience of gaslit, foggy streets (I’m pretty appreciative of this sort of thing) and others, like me, are interested in the social history and can barely bring themselves to look at the mortuary photographs of the victims. I’m ALL OVER maps and contemporary photographs of the actual area though.

I’m not being all holier than thou, though. Although I will tend to avoid most documentaries on the Ripper case, the deeply flawed From Hell is one of my all time favourite films. I don’t feel obliged to wholeheartedly LOVE everything about it though – the prettying up of what, and I say this as someone who has absolute respect for them, was a group of rather unlovely women makes me wince rather a lot and makes me wonder if it is more disrespectful to make someone more attractive than they were in reality than it is to show them in all their toothless, grimy, warts n all glory?

I think I’ve said enough. What do you think? Have you been grinding your teeth for months wondering if I am the sort of misguided female who writes love letters to serial killers on death row (I’m really REALLY not but as to whether there should even BE a death row, ah well, that’s a whole new rant really, isn’t it?) or if I have ANY IDEA how rampagingly misogynistic I am being by flouncing about the place rambling on about GIN and alleyways?

Anyway, I have other thoughts but my RSI wrist is telling me stop plus this is getting a bit epic now and is rapidly spiralling out of control. As always, I am reminded of the scene in Father Ted, where he accepts an award and gives the longest speech ever, being interrupted at the point where he says: ‘And now, moving on to LIARS…’ What do you think, anyway? Let’s have a chat about it. Or not. We could talk about something else if you like? Like the snow or what happened at the end of the last episode of Sherlock or how much the Daily Mail pay journalists to watch award ceremonies and premieres and look out for tan lines/price stickers on the bottom of shoes/bags under the eyes/spinach between the teeth…

The Pleasures of Men – Kate Williams

22 Jan

‘Catherine Sorgeiul lives with her Uncle in a rambling house in London’s East End. She has few companions and little to occupy the days beyond her own colourful imagination.

But then a murderer strikes, ripping open the chests of young girls and stuffing hair into their mouths to resemble a beak, leading the press to christen him The Man of Crows. And as Catherine devours the news, she finds she can channel the voices of the dead, and comes to believe she will eventually channel The Man of Crows himself.

But the murders continue to panic the city and Catherine gradually realizes she is snared in a deadly trap, where nothing is as it first appears.
And lurking behind the lies Catherine has been told are secrets more deadly and devastating than anything her imagination can conjure …‘

The Victorians were really keen on microcosm paintings, panoramic views of their society crammed full of faces, stories and activity like so many over dressed ants all busying themselves at the same time. William Powell Frith’s amazing sprawling The Derby Day and The Railway Station are perfect examples of this particularly Victorian genre, where the viewer is invited to greedily observe everything, their eyes scanning the myriad of different faces, pausing here and there to ponder what their story is.

In recent years, the ‘Victoriana’ novel has gained popularity and almost become a genre in its own right. Like the microcosm paintings of Frith, there are rules to this genre, certain period set pieces that must be included, descriptions and observations of a more contemporary nature that must be made and they are invariably populated by a vast cast of characters, mostly incidental but who must be described in great and lurid detail.

The Pleasures of Men by Kate Williams is one such book. I was very much looking forward to reading it, anticipating something akin to Michel Faber’s brilliant The Crimson Petal and the White. Now, The Pleasures of Men is very similar to The Crimson Petal but only in so far as most other ‘Victoriana’ novels are – there’s the usual description of dirt, decay and damp. The wails of unfortunate babies follow the characters wherever they venture. People drink gin like it’s about to run out. There’s an awful lot of prostitutes.

There are other similarities – like Faber’s Sugar, Catherine, the heroine of The Pleasures of Men is damaged by her past and keen on feverishly writing down fantasies that involve violence, death, murder and destruction. Fascinated by a serial killer, known as The Man of Crows, she writes lurid accounts of his murders and eventually decides to venture out into the city at night to walk in his footsteps, believing herself ‘protected’ by the evil that she has always been told dwells inside her.

This was a complex and often deeply unpleasant book. I’ve seen complaints that it is over written and I’d be inclined to agree with that assessment but I believe that it is intentionally so. The writing is full blown, lavish, feverish and often over wrought, creating a really horrible, almost suffocatingly intense atmosphere of heat, dust and dirt as observed by a sexually obsessed, disturbed Victorian teenager who has spent time in a lunatic asylum.

The narrowness of a young Victorian girl’s life is well described here – not just that of Catherine with her peculiar circumstances but those of her over dressed acquaintances, who sexually torment their maids and fantasise about serial killers while slyly keeping watch for suitable young men.

At times though, the plot, which when you think about it isn’t really all that complicated (you’ll be disappointed when you discover the identity of the Man of Crows) veers not so much into confusion as into vague slapdashness, almost as if the writer herself lost interest about a hundred pages before the end (which was a bit of a damp squib all things considered) and decided that she didn’t care who the Man of Crows was or who he murdered any more. I can’t blame her for that – I didn’t really care either.

Would I recommend this book? Well, yes and no. If you are in the mood for a dip into the revolting iniquity of London’s east end in the 1840s and have a thing for Victorian asylums and the deranged meanderings of cooped up young girls as well as splendid Victorian set pieces like visits to pie shops, trips to gin dens and a splendidly disastrous visit to the vaudeville theatre then you’ll almost certainly love this. Otherwise you’ll probably start to feel a bit queasy and long for something a bit less histrionic.

Personally, although I did, I think, rather enjoy myself while reading it (and also feel slightly alarmed as I have written about similar themes in my own Victorian effort), I went off and had a long bath when I’d finished reading and splashed the water about a bit while muttering ‘A MILLION POUND ADVANCE? A. MILLION. POUNDS?’ over and over again until I felt like booking myself in for a nice restorative stay at Catherine’s lunatic asylum, the lovely sounding Lavenderfields.

Having said that, I fully expect this to be made into a film at some point in the near future…

Ps. Where is the woman’s right hand in the cover photograph? Haha, now that I have made you look, you will never be able to UNSEE.

When the Devil Drives – Caro Peacock

14 Dec

When intrepid lady detective Liberty Lane is approached by a two very different clients – a diffident young man from the Essex countryside with a missing fiancée that he doesn’t seem to know very much about and a cultured music loving gentleman who is keen to protect a beautiful but mysterious foreign countess from creating a scandal, she has no idea that what actually lies before her is a tangled web of murder, kidnapping, royal iniquity and state secrets.

I was hooked and held enthralled from the very first page by Caro Peacock’s lushly imagined, vivid and highly detailed depiction of London’s dark and dangerous streets in the early years of ‘Little Vicky’s’ long reign. As is so often the case with really good historical fiction, the setting was the star of the show and Liberty proved an excellent guide to the fascinating underbelly of the Victorian capital, where it seems that everyone and everything has a price.

The feisty, straight talking Liberty herself makes an excellent and immensely likeable heroine who is equally at home riding amongst the upper echelons of society in Hyde Park or wandering around the dark and dangerous streets of the docks.

The story itself was well realised and a lot of fun with a dash of romance, plenty of twists and turns and more than one genuine edge of seat moment as Liberty’s investigation progressed. If you are looking for a devious and deeply engrossing mystery set in Victorian London then this definitely won’t disappoint.

(Originally reviewed for the Historical Novel Society).

A Dark Victoriana Christmas

1 Dec

Seeing as it’s now the first of December, I think I can now safely mention CHRISTMAS without enraging most of you. Thanks to Dickens, there are few things more evocative than what we fondly imagine to be a Victorian Christmas, complete with urchins pressing their faces longingly up against toy shop windows; plum puddings; dancing around the Christmas tree and tightfisted millionaires getting shown the error of their ways.

As long term readers of my blog and Twitter know, I like to refer to myself as a Victorian Prostitute Re-enactor, mainly because it sounds more dashing than ‘Ripperologist’ but also because my sartorial influences are From Hell and Helena Bonham Carter in, well, just about everything. I don’t just flounce about with unbrushed pink hair, ripped up flounced skirt and stinking of GIN though. No. I also like to surround myself with beautiful objects that are redolent of the dark flyblown rose that lies at the heart of the Victorian underworld.

Don’t ever call me steampunk though – or I’ll cut you.

Anyway, because it’s almost Christmas, here’s a Victorian themed present guide with a murderous GIN SCENTED twist…

Z is for Zillah Who Drank Too Much GIN.

GIN and Juice (juniper and berry) solid perfume.

Miniature GIN bottle necklace.

Poison and Antidote coffee cups. SERIOUS WANT here for these!

Jack the Ripper murder notice. I’m definitely buying one of these!

Jack the Ripper poster. Definitely getting one of these as well!

Gin and Tonic moustache wax. I kind of love this but am not sure what I would use it for!

Drink more GIN. I have one of these in my kitchen and it never fails to make me smile!

From Hell pendant. I’m getting one of these too!

The Nemesis of Neglect pendant.

Brothel token necklaces. I ADORE these and really must get around to buying one soon!

Tokyo Milk ‘Arsenic’ perfume – notes: Absinthe, Vanilla Salt, Cut Greens, Crushed Fennel.

Tokyo Milk ‘Absinthe’ lip elixir – notes: Anise, Mineral Salt, Citrus Peel, Crushed Herbs.

Alice in Wonderland gloves by Heavy Red.

Juniper Sling eau de toilette by Penhaligons.

Green Queen silver and Swarovski crystal necklace.

Lizzie Borden bag. I’d LOVE this.

Skull cameo bobby pins.

Anatomy votive candle holders.

Laudanum tea cup. I love this too. I love all of it in fact. I hope my husband reads this post and buys me ALL THE THINGS.

I hope you like this selection of treats drawn from the dark side of Victoriana. I’ll be doing another post like this later on in the month…

Dickens’ London

29 Nov

Longterm readers of this blog will know that I am passionately interested in Victorian London, particularly its grimy, seedy underbelly so I was thrilled when Haus Publishing sent me a copy of Dickens’s London by Peter Clark to review.

‘Few novelists have written so intimately about a city in the way that Charles Dickens wrote about London. A near-photographic memory made his contact with the city indelible from a very young age and it remained his constant focus. Virginia Woolf maintained that, ‘we remodel our psychological geography when we read Dickens,’ as he produces ‘characters who exist not in detail, not accurately or exactly, but abundantly in a cluster of wild yet extraordinarily revealing remarks.’

But the ‘character’ he was drawn back to throughout his novels was London itself, all aspects of the capital from the coaching inns of his early years to the taverns and watermen of the Thames; these were the constant cityscapes of his life and work.

Based on five walks in central London, Peter Clark illuminates the settings of Dickens’s London, his life, his journalism and his fiction. He also explores ‘The First Suburbs’ (Camden Town, Chelsea, Greenwich, Hampstead, Highgate and Limehouse) as they feature in Dickens’s writing.‘

There’s several books available about Victorian London but this is one is unique as it actually guides you through the streets on five fascinating and in-depth walking tours, which lead you past buildings and places that appear in Dickens’ work (with relevant quotes) or were important to his life. I haven’t attempted one of the tours yet (but will do next time I am in London) but found this a fascinating armchair read as it really leaves no stone uncovered and also highlights just how intertwined Dickens and the city were.

This book is ideal for anyone interested in Victorian London – especially those who are keen on really long walks! I can’t wait to give one of the walks a go.

This brilliant book is a bargain at £7.99 from Haus Publishing’s site and readers who use the Exclusive To This Blog discount code of MMG25 will get 25% off! (It says it is coming out in February but is actually available to buy right now.)

Thanks so much to Haus for my review copy!

Queen Victoria’s mourning dress

6 Aug

One of the highlights of my recent visit to London was the opportunity to get a close look at one of Queen Victoria’s mourning bodices, which is kept lovingly enshrined with its matching skirt in the vast archives of the Royal Ceremonial Dress Collection in Kensington Palace.

I was really taken aback by how exquisite and tastefully ornate the embroidery and lace decoration was and, I’ll be honest, it made me see the mourning Queen Victoria in a whole new light. I’ve never really looked closely at images of the mourning Queen – her black garb is too heavy and forbidding and her expression too dourly unhappy to really invite uncouth scrutiny from the likes of me.

However, I now find myself looking more closely at photographs and paintings of Queen Victoria in her autumn years, noting the fact that she may well be in deepest darkest mourning but was clearly still rather partial to delicate feminine touches of lace, jet trimmed embroidery and the bright glitter of black sequin spangles on dusky hued gauze.

We can only imagine now how charismatic Victoria was in her lifetime but she must have made an arresting sight – only five feet tall and with a rather portly build in her later years (let’s give her a break though – she had nine children, tubby Hanoverian genes and the ultimate desk job after all) she still managed to draw every single eye whenever she entered the room. The profound black of her dress must have helped, of course but clearly she was just as glittering as ever.

This shouldn’t be a surprise really though – Victoria was only forty two years old when her beloved Albert died suddenly in December 1861, which isn’t all that much older than I am right now and I’m sitting here dressed in All Saints with pink hair. Clearly her love for Albert was much stronger than any considerations of fashion but then Victoria had never really been a modish, trend setting Queen in the manner of Marie Antoinette, Anne Boleyn or the Empress Joséphine. Her taste as a young woman had been rather gaudy in fact, with an emphasis on bright colours, as much jewellery as she could pile on at once, a lot of flounces and very loud prints.

Of course, Victoria can’t possibly have known how long she would survive Albert for after his death (forty years!) and wouldn’t have foreseen just how long her mourning would carry on for. The uncharitable side of me sometimes whispers that maybe it went on for so long because Victoria had beaten Coco Chanel to a realisation of the miraculously slimming properties of an all black outfit, but of course that’s just ridiculous, right.

Also, along with murmurs of ‘There’s a lot to be said for grief counselling’ and ‘maybe one of her friends should have staged an intervention after about twenty years or so’ that’s probably a rather flippant modern response to the concept of mourning, which is one that we don’t really generally understand all that well any more. Not that the bereaved are expected to snap out of it and hook up with new partners straight away, but those who choose to remain single for the rest of their days and especially those who continue to wear mourning are definitely regarded as something a little unusual.

Which is a little weird actually – after all, life expectancy is longer these days and medical care infinitely better which means that death is itself rather more unusual than it was in Victorian times when widows in black weeds were actually a commonplace sight.

When my mother in law died a couple of years ago, my husband and I often remarked to each other in much distress that we didn’t know what to do and lamented the fact that although there are countless books dictating the etiquettes of weddings, christenings and prom dates – there is very little guidance when it comes to behaving appropriately after some passes on. This, I think, is where the Victorians had the advantage of us as they always knew exactly what to do and had very strict codes about how long to wear mourning for – two years for full mourning with a crepe ‘weeping’ veil (crepe is a nasty fabric that is prone to disintegration and can actually cause breathing problems if you inhale it) and then a gradual easing off when ornamentation could be added to the black dressed and then, gradually, the bereaved lady could begin to dress in soft greys and lilacs. Etiquette also dictated when to call and leave condolence cards, what to eat at a wake, what flowers to place on a grave and then how to tastefully remember those that are no longer with us with jet and hair jewellery.

I’m not sure that I’d like a return to such displays of profound and ostentatious public sorrow (it’d be unnerving for a start – ever seen The Woman in Black?) but maybe the Victorians got something right…

Dressing the Stars at Bath Fashion Museum

12 Jul

We have a bit of a cinematic theme here at Madame Guillotine lately, don’t we? Today  Felix and I headed off on a train to Bath for the opening day of the new exhibition Dressing the Stars at the fabulous Bath Fashion Museum, which is housed in the former Assembly Rooms where Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, Jane Austen and a whole host of Georgette Heyer heroines flirted, dance and exchanged frosty bows with acquaintances.

Nowadays, the Assembly Rooms have been used as a location for several film and television productions, including Persuasion and The Duchess and so it makes an excellent setting for a magnificent exhibition of costumes from some of the finest films ever. I already knew to expect dresses from Young Victoria, The Duchess, Tess, Elizabeth and Sense and Sensibility but gave a definite gasp when I walked into the pale blue and white ball room and saw a splendid display arrayed before me.

 

I had a quick chat with the exhibition organiser, Yvonne Hellin-Hobbs, who has many years experience of working with costumed films and worked on Sense and Sensibility, which everyone who has read Emma Thompson’s memoir of the filming knows must have been a VERY fun film to work on! She told me that her favourite costume comes from the film Tess: a gorgeous and delicate looking wine coloured gown that looks like it might actually be a genuine piece from that era. All of the costumes on display looked amazing but when you get up close, the illusion that they create on screen is often dispelled and you realise that they aren’t actually a genuine period piece. Not so with the Tess gown.

Here’s a selection of some of the costumes that I saw:

A beautiful lilac dress worn by Bette Davis in Death on the Nile (1978).

An intricate doublet worn by Laurence Olivier in Hamlet (1948).

Roman armour from Ben Hur (1959).

Another Laurence Olivier costume, this time from Henry V (1944).

Captain Jack Sparrow!

Commodus’ white armour from Gladiator (2000).

Dress worn by Charlotte Rampling as Lady Spencer in The Duchess (2008).

Worn by Ralph Fiennes as the Duke of Devonshire in The Duchess.

Wedding dress worn by Keira Knightley as Georgiana in The Duchess.

Gown worn by Keira Knightley in The Duchess. I find this piece interesting as an unusual example of what maternity wear would have looked like in the 1780s.

Dress worn by Keira Knightley in The Duchess. This is the dress that Georgiana wears in the scene where she attends a ball in a rather squiffy state.

Wedding outfits worn by Alan Rickman and Kate Winslet as Colonel Brandon and Marianne Dashwood in Sense and Sensibility (1995).

Detail from a dress worn by Miranda Richardson as the Duchess of Kent in The Young Victoria (2009).

Uniform worn by Colin Firth as George VI in The King’s Speech (2010).

Dress worn by Helena Bonham-Carter as Queen Elizabeth in The King’s Speech.

Dress worn by Gwyneth Paltrow as Viola in Shakespeare in Love (1998).

Gown worn by Judi Dench as Elizabeth I in Shakespeare in Love.

Costumes worn by Cate Blanchett  as Elizabeth I (and lovely Clive Owen as Walter Rayleigh?) in Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007).

Coronation ensemble worn by Cate Blanchett as Elizabeth I in Elizabeth (1998).

Fancy schmancy costume worn by Robert Downey Jnr as Robert Merivale in Restoration (1995).

Beautiful dress worn by Swoosie Kurtz as Madame de Volanges in Dangerous Liaisons (1988).

As well as beautiful dresses and dashing uniforms, there was also a dressing up rail in the corner with childrens’ costumes made especially for the exhibition, which I think will be very popular! Felix immediately made a beeline for it and was dressed up as one of his heroes – Captain Jack Sparrow! Arrr! There were also gorgeous dresses in a Georgian and Regency style for little girls to dress up in. There’s going to be some activities for children as well over the summer while the exhibition is on, including opportunities to design court dresses and other fun things.

This is an amazing exhibition – it’s really great to be able to view such gorgeous costumes up close and I’ll definitely be returning before it ends on the 29th August. I’m also hoping to get to one of the special events that they have planned, include special screenings of The Kings Speech (introduced by the costume designer, Jenny Beavan) and The Young Victoria (introduced by scriptwriter, Julian Fellowes).

 

If you live in the north of England and feel a bit left out, some of Dressing the Stars will be moving to the Rheged centre in Penrith later in the summer. In the meantime, it’s definitely worth a trip to Bath.

Here’s more information about the exhibition, including opening times.

 

Ps. We were filmed and interviewed by the crew of Points West while there this afternoon and apparently will be on this evening’s show! Eek. I’m not the greatest public speaker ever so am hoping I don’t appear but Felix was a DOLL and the politest little pirate there ever was so I hope they show him.

 

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