Expression
Expression
Clothes are one of the ways we express ourselves. Although we may choose to follow trends, we often use clothes to show our individual identity.
The garments in the left-hand side of this case highlight how clothes enable us to showcase our own personal style.
Object in focus: Early 1910s formal afternoon dress
Piece of written text by Elizabeth Turner, Look Again project volunteer.
Sometimes, the information provided when an item is donated leaves more questions than answers.
On the surface, this dress is a relatively standard formal afternoon dress from around 1913-14, consisting of a bodice, skirt, and sash. The elongated but relaxed silhouette and bold colour choice echo the covers of numerous French fashion magazines from the period. The dress’s intense purple hue has inspired a range of comparisons over the years, from a former curator’s romantic description of ‘parma violet’ silk to a Cadbury chocolate wrapper.
Princess Obolensky, purple silk dress, 1913, ©The Salisbury Museum collection
The embroidery follows a fashionable Arts & Crafts design using a perle (twisted) embroidery thread in a technique inspired by Amy Kotze’s embroidery work for Liberty & Co.
Kotze’s unique style and bold designs continued to be used by Liberty long after her departure in 1909 and she went on to sell her work to help fund women’s suffrage organisations like the WSPU (Women's Social and Political Union).
Ironically, the small mistakes and quirks that dressmakers try to avoid are often what makes a garment interesting.
Repairs, alterations, and mistakes give us a greater sense of connection with the many people who made, wore, and mended an item.
On the back of the bodice, a few stray dark ink marks indicate that the embroiderer changed her mind on the positioning of the design at the last minute.
An extra hook and eye were added for a sturdier closure, reinforced with a non-matching piece of lilac silk at a later date, all of this bringing the dress’s former owner to life. The index card stated, among other things, that the dress had belonged to a “Princess Obolensky” who had trained under the designer Paul Poiret in Paris after the 1917 Russian revolution.
A note tucked in the box with the dress also stated “Lubov Oblensky”. The Obolensky family had, at one time, been one of the wealthiest families in Russia, with a long-standing alliance with another noble family, the Trubetskois.
Princess Lyubov Trubetskaya had married Prince Alexei Obolensky and trained as a nurse to follow her husband to the Russian front during WWI. To escape the revolution, both families moved to Crimea, but this was not enough. In 1917, Lyubov, Alexei, and their children, along with Maria Trubetskaya and her family, escaped Crimea on board a ship carrying refugees destined for Turkey.
They had nothing except the diamonds that Lyubov had hidden in the head of one of her daughter’s porcelain dolls, and once in Turkey, were given two weeks to find somewhere else to go.
Lyubov, Maria, and their friend, the artist Maria Annenkova, headed for Paris and set up TAO, a small fashion house.
The wave of Russian émigrés to Europe following the revolution caused a fashion mania with Russian inspired designs and embroidery featured in numerous magazines and collections.
Lyubov also frequently travelled to London in the early 1920s.
Back detail, Princess Obolensky, purple silk dress, 1913, ©The Salisbury Museum collection
Her husband Alexei’s success as an opera singer was growing, and in the early years, she had supported him by playing piano. She even opened a pop-up boutique in the dining room of socialite and artist Violet Manners, Duchess of Rutland.
Despite TAO’s success, not a single labelled example of their work appeared to have survived in any museum collection. But why would one of the wealthiest women in Russia have carried an old dress with her? Perhaps in the heat of the moment, as they fled from Crimea, she had grabbed whatever was to hand? It’s unlikely that she would have needed to make her own clothes in 1913, yet maybe the misplaced embroidery markings and the extra hook and eye were a Princess’s attempts at altering what she had?
The index card stated, among other things, that the dress had belonged to a “Princess Obolensky” who had trained in Paris after the 1917 Russian revolution.
Close up, Princess Obolensky, purple silk dress, 1913, ©The Salisbury Museum collection
Following her husband’s death in WWI and in response to the growing numbers of Russian émigrés arriving in England, Olga, now Lady Egerton, set up a fashion label in 1919. Inspired by the likes of Paul Poiret and Jeanne Lanvin in Paris, the fashion house was named "Paul Caret".
Olga hired former Russian aristocrats as seamstresses, embroiderers, and saleswomen.
Many of those women fleeing had few opportunities and had lost everything, but they had good needlework skills. Some were also trained in pattern cutting.
The label was incredibly successful, eventually relocating to Paris with branches in London and Cannes.
The designs produced there were also a frequent feature of French Vogue throughout the 1920s. Caret produced collections until 1929. Despite the label's success, no records of who was employed there, in what roles, or when, survive, only that in 1929 the Paris office employed 50 seamstresses, and 3 pattern cutters.
We do know that other members of the Obolensky family settled in England, and it would not be impossible for one of them to have worked for Olga’s label too.
We can’t say for certain who owned or wore the dress even though it bears the signs of having been lovingly worn and cherished. Regardless of its provenance, however, it is a very human reminder of a defining moment of modern European history so often obscured by power struggles and statistics.
By Elizabeth Turner, Look Again Project Volunteer
For more information on the history of Paul Caret and TRA:
Beauty in Exile - Alexandre Vassiliev, (1998), New York: Harry N. Abrams Inc..
For an introduction into the work of Amy Kotze:
https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/features/shedding-light-on-killertons-suffragette-day-dress