Fashion and Fancy Dress
The Messel Family Dress Collection: 1865 - 2005

Background and Context

The story of this dress collection starts with surviving garments from its two founding families: the Messels and the Sambournes, who were united by the marriage of Leonard Messel to Maud Sambourne in 1898.

Marion Sambourne, wife of Linley Sambourne (Chief Cartoonist of Punch), lived at 18, Stafford Terrace (now Linley Sambourne House). She was the ‘family archivist’ and kept all the personal ephemera of her life between 1870 and 1914.

From 1898 to the 1950s, following in her mother’s footsteps, Maud Messel (née Sambourne) kept ‘souvenirs’: photographs, letters and a host of domestic scraps, as well as garments.

Anne Rosse (née Messel, then Mrs Armstrong Jones) kept everything. This foresightedness led to the setting up of the Sambourne Family Archive, held by the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. She also ensured that the family houses (Linley Sambourne House, Nymans and Birr Castle) and gardens were preserved, renovated and maintained.

Anne determinedly ensured that the specific family meanings attached to her collection of garments remained intact, placing on them hand-written notes or writing on their boxes.

Messel family group

 

Alison, the current Lady Rosse, has added further notes and drawings to the collection.
Marion Sambourne dressed correctly for all occasions with a wardrobe of day, evening, summer, winter, city and country clothes. She was suitably and smartly attired to support her husband’s social position as a well-known figure and a friend of prominent industrialists and men of business and the arts.

Marion spent much time acquiring clothes from London department stores, private dressmakers and making simpler garments herself. Ever conscious of money, Marion faithfully recorded the sums paid to her dressmakers. Her clothes speak to us about the domestic life of a middle class Victorian wife. Fashion was an anxiety rather than a pleasure in Marion’s life.

Maud, Marion’s daughter (b.1875), was launched on the London ‘season’ in 1893, aged 18. For the first time she was taken to an expensive shop to buy an evening dress. Her new social life included country house visits, such as to Nymans in Sussex, country residence of Ludwig and Annie, parents of Leonard Messel, her future husband. This marriage fulfilled Maud’s parents’ fondest wishes: a good match for their daughter and confirmation of their own rising status in society.

Maud Messel, c 1909-1910

Maud’s surviving clothes (1898 – 1947) tell the story of her rise into upper-middle/upper class society and form the nucleus of the Messel Collection. They display a complete awareness of her place within her specific social group, alongside a personal style that expressed her individuality and fascination with the ‘picturesque’.

Edwardian society was governed by a complex dress code for women. Maud’s wardrobe encompasses: morning dresses, midmorning dresses, house dresses, walking dresses, visiting dresses, afternoon dresses, evening dresses, ball dresses and special outfits for sports and travelling. Daywear, which is rarely kept, is well represented through dresses and suits. Maud’s letters and diaries are packed with information about what clothing she wore on particular occasions.

Maud confidently embraced the key stylistic developments during 1895 – 1935, from the S-Bend through to high-waisted Directoire in 1900 –1910, from the rising hemlines of the late 1910s, to the straight cut low-waisted 1920s styles and finally to the form-fitting bias cutting of the 1930s.

Aesthetic touches and interesting decorative features indicate that Maud often worked closely with her couturières. She favoured Sarah Fullerton Monteith Young, Mrs Neville, Lucile, Reville & Rossiter, Madame Hayward and Mascotte. A subtle unconventionality within her taste is manifested in curious buttons, buckles, clasps, touches of the oriental and peasant embroidery Maud was directly responsible for these additions, applying them herself or instructing her designers to do so.

Maud developed high levels of expertise on textile history and became an accomplished, serious embroiderer, which she also taught. Wherever she travelled, she searched for antique textiles.

Fancy dress played a central role in the lives of Maud and Leonard, which they inherited independently from their parents and which they passed on to their children. It allowed them to indulge their taste for all things ‘oriental’ and historical, and it helped to raise their social profile. Their social circle included creative, cultivated, intelligent and wealthy people, such as Sir Hugh Lane, Percy Macquoid, Sir Denison Ross and Glyn Philpot.

The Messels attended the Chelsea Arts Club Balls, internationally famous costume balls that were hugely popular and lavish events, organised with involvement from the artists (their friends) John Singer Sargent and Derwent Wood.

Chinese Coat, early 20th century, worn by Maud Messel

Maud’s daughter, Anne Messel (Armstrong Jones/ Rosse), also developed a distinctive personal style. The fashionable dresses that Anne selected, made, embellished, wore and preserved are laced with biographical references. Trained at Victoire, she was also an accomplished embroiderer. Throughout her life Anne retained her love of gardening, and flowers formed a core component of her fashion identity. Like Maud, Anne also customised her fashionable clothing.

In the 1930s there was a widespread interest in the Victorian period and Anne, a society beauty, was compared to Vivien Leigh in Gone with the Wind by Evelyn Waugh and James Lees-Milne.

Anne patronised many of the more imaginative couturiers of her day. She helped to launch Charles James’ career and attended his Thursday afternoon salons for select clients and friends, including Cecil Beaton, Lady Ottoline Morrell, Virginia Woolf, Nancy Cunard and Stephen Tennant.

She and Michael, Lord Rosse, enjoyed a year long honeymoon. Dresses from Anne’s trousseau drew stylistically on the indigenous clothing of their destinations: such as an Elsa Schiaparelli ‘sari’ evening dress and the Charles James ‘Bali’ day dress.

Anne and Ronald Armstrong-Jones on their wedding day 1925

 

When at Birr Castle, Lord Rosse’s residence in County Offaly, Anne became an invaluable patron of the Irish fashion industry, which included designers such as Irene Gilbert.

The Rosses attended costume balls. The famous Bestegui Ball in Venice was hosted by Lady Diana Cooper as Cleopatra and attended by Salvador Dali, resplendent in a costume designed by Dior, and the Aga Khan.

At the Coronation Ball of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953, Anne wore a dress designed by John Cavanagh – the youngest and arguably the most innovative of London’s ‘top eleven’ couturiers.

In 1960, for the wedding of her son, Anthony Armstrong Jones, to Princess Margaret, Anne wore a suit designed by Victor Stiebel, of which she wrote: ‘This was acclaimed by the world as the smartest.’

Anne Armstrong Jones in fancy dress by Cecil Beaton 1930

Anna Lin is married to Lord Oxmantown, eldest son of the current Lord and Lady Rosse. For their wedding in China in the summer of 2004, she wore a striking contemporary interpretation of a traditional Chinese wedding dress, made by Guyu, to her design. It is strapless, in the correct auspicious colour of red, with a huge flying phoenix embroidered in coloured silks – testament to the fact that the current generation is continuing the flair and tradition of their forebears.

Introduction
The Exhibition
The Messel Family Personalities
The Curators
Press

Back to list of exhibitions