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

The Exhibition

Fashion and Fancy Dress chronicles and interprets the clothes worn by six generations of one remarkable family. This exhibition features fifty-five exceptional outfits, drawn from a unique collection of garments, never before exhibited, and now on loan to Brighton Museum from Linley Sambourne House, Lord Snowdon and the Earl of Rosse.

The exhibition explores how treasured items of clothing, collected and preserved over time, represent family memory and heritage. A singular artistic and creative eye runs through the six generations, encompassing English, Irish, French and Chinese style; a love of fancy dress; and a specific choice of fashion designers.

Wedding Dress by Sarah Fullerton Monteith Young 1890, worn by Maud Sambourne

Maud Messel and her daughter Anne, Countess of Rosse, were collectors and guardians extraordinaire of their family history. A gentle aesthetic eccentricity (Maud Messel) and a strong sense of fashionable, yet personal, sophistication (Anne Armstrong Jones/Rosse and Anna Ling, now Lady Oxmanton) differentiates these women from more conventional clients of London or Paris couture houses.

Throughout the exhibition, items of dress and accessories are set in their social context through period photographs and film footage. A display of rarely seen Society portraits from the collection at Brighton Museum complements ‘A Family of Fashion and Fancy Dress’.

In the early 20th century, the clothes worn by Maud and Anne Messel reflected the aesthetic style, characteristic of English fashionable dress at that time.

Examples of exoticism appear in Maud’s wardrobe, as she altered couture dresses, adding embroidered panels and braids. For example, her ‘Going Away’ outfit (1898) fastens with a turquoise scarab beetle on a gold chain, while a brick red muslin day dress (1906) has unusual hand painted ‘Balkan’ designs on the centre front.

There are also medieval influences in Anne’s wardrobe of this time, as seen in the strands of pearls on her wedding dress (1925) and in a series of velvet capes she wore famously in the late 1930s.

Coat 1912-1920, worn by Maud Messel

An interest in China can be seen through the generations up to the present day; and Chinese dress has been collected on both sides of the family since the early 20th century. Leonard Messel famously collected Chinese fans, and outfits bought directly from China by Maud include the glorious yellow and blue coats on display. In 2004, Patrick, Lord Oxmantown (son of Lord Rosse), married Anna Lin in Beijing. She designed her own, stunning, red embroidered satin wedding dress for the occasion.

Also on display are perfect examples of English couture clothing by London fashion houses, from 1900-1920: Sarah Fullerton Monteith Young, Lucile, Madame Hayward, and Mrs Neville of Connaught Street.

Later, Norman Hartnell, Charles James, and John Cavanagh were patronised; and, through the 1950s and 1960s, the Irish designers Irene Gilbert and Sybil Connolly are represented.

As well as garments worn by the family on Society occasions - wedding, christening, evening, sporting, Coronation and mourning - the exhibition also features the Messel embroidery workshops, the development of the Nymans embroidery workshop and the family’s love of jewellery and fancy dress, used in re-enactments of their 18th century ancestors and at other fancy dress balls of 1910 – 1930s.

Guyu wedding dress worn by Anna Lin 2004

The exhibition begins with Mary Anne Herapath (First Generation), mother of Marion.

In 1874, Marion Herapath (Second Generation married Linley Sambourne, Punch cartoonist. The pink candy-striped bustle dress on display, made by ‘S .A. Brooking. 23, Westbourne Grove’ was probably related to her wedding. Clothes from this period demonstrate middle/ upper middle class aesthetic tendencies.

Maud (Third Generation), Marion’s daughter, married Leonard Messel, a stockbroker and art connoisseur. She was presented at Court in 1908. Exhibits illustrate Maud’s love of fancy dress parties and an interest in her ancestors Elizabeth Linley and Richard Brindsley Sheridan. In 1947, she purchased for Leonard a 1785 man’s suit said to have belonged to Lord Carnarvon and a related Spitalfields silk dress, of the same date, for herself.

The exhibition chronicles the fashions worn by Maud in London and the country, her dressmakers, designers and an analysis of her ‘picturesque’ style. This shows how, at this time, the family was moving ‘upward’ into upper middle class/gentry circles.

Anne Messel/Armstrong Jones (Fourth Generation), Maud’s daughter, was a skilled professional dressmaker, trained at Victoire’s in Sloane Street. She made social connections through her brother, designer Oliver Messel, and friends included Cecil Beaton. From the late 1920s, Anne participated in fashionable fancy dress Society balls in London, dressed as characters including Elizabeth Linley and Lady Hamilton.

Anne patronised young, innovative London couturiers and Paris fashion houses, including the House of Irfé, run by Count Yousopov - one of the three men who murdered Rasputin! By the early 1930s, Anne was a Society Beauty recognised for her unique sense of fashion and elegance.

In 1935, following her second wedding (to Michael, 6th Earl of Rosse from Birr, County Offaly), Anne’s honeymoon wardrobe included her ‘Bali’ dress and a yellow bouclé silk day dress.

As Countess of Rosse, moving in Court circles, Anne had homes in London and at Birr Castle. She launched the career of Charles James in the mid 1930s and wore his pink ribbon bustle back dress to the 1939 Blenheim Ball. The exhibition shows four unique Charles James dresses, including one printed with the face of Snow White on blue silk.

Anne’s fame as a Society beauty increased, with frequent fashion reports on her clothes in the press. She attended both the 1937 and 1953 Coronations. At the Georgian Ball, Osterley Park in 1939, she wore a Norman Hartnell dress and was painted three times in Eighteenth Century fancy dress.

Evening Dress by Norman Hartnell, worn by Anne Armstrong Jones, 1929

During World War II, Anne organised and ran a hospital and supply depot for the Irish Red Cross, and only one dress from this period survives: a green bouclé wool, three quarter length, evening dress by Jacqmar, with a collarette of green, white and mauve glass leaves, padded shoulders and a label written by Anne - ‘Had a wonderful time in this dress I am ashamed to say!!’.

Anne’s daughter Susan (Fifth Generation), a debutante in the late 1940s, was photographed in the Charles James Ribbon Dress. She married in 1950 in a white satin Victorian-style dress made by her mother, with a flower garland by Oliver Messel.

In 1953, Anne participated in many Coronation celebrations and, on one occasion, worked through the night to make a yellow silk ball dress for Susan, following an unexpected, late invitation to Buckingham Palace. That year, Anne also attended the famous Beistigui Carnival ball in Venice. Her John Cavanagh ball dress (1953) used brocade designed by Oliver Messel for Nicholas Seker’s silk mills; she patronised the new Irish couture houses in Dublin; and, at the wedding of her son, Anthony Armstrong Jones (Lord Snowdon), to Princess Margaret in 1960, she wore a Victor Stiebel dress and coat with a hat by Simone Mirman.

Susan Armstrong Jones wearing her mother's Charles James Dress

The Sixth Generation is represented by David Linley and Lady Sarah Chatto (Anne’s grandchildren) and finally Anna, Lady Oxmantown, whose spectacular wedding dress is one of the highlights of the exhibition.

Introduction
Background and Context
The Messel Family Personalities
The Curators
Press

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