Home  |  Up  |  Info  |  Search  |  View basket  |  Checkout  |  Email us  |  Login

Architecture Decorative Arts Fine Art Forthcoming Titles Instruments and Technology Oriental Art Exclusive Titles

Catalogue >Fine Art >  General >  A Family of Fashion: The Messel Dress Collection, 1865-2005 A Family of Fashion: The Messel Dress Collection, 1865-2005 Lord Snowdon's family A lavishly illustrated catalogue to accompany the forthcoming exhibition at Brighton Museum and Art Gallery. The items on display are drawn from the extensive wardrobe of four generations of Lord Snowdon's family - the Messel-Rosse-Linley-Sambourne-Snowdons. The book uses these examples to trace the evolution of stylish English dress from the late nineteenth century through to the 1970s, and is brought up to modern times through items lent by living family members. 270 x 210 mm, 192 pages, 75 colour, 60 half-tones, 100 thumbnail colour illustrations, hardback ISBN: 0 85667 610 1 | Retail price £29.95  [View pages in PDF format] Online price: £21.00 / €31.50 The Messel Dress Collection is a unique collection of exceptional garments, embracing luxurious international haute couture, fancy dress, home made and customised clothing worn by six generations of women from one extraordinary and creative family - Mary Anne Herapath, Marion Sambourne, Maud Messel, Anne, Countess of Rosse, Susan Viscountess de Vesci, Alison, Countess of Rosse and Anna, Lady Oxmantown. At the heart of the collection is the clothing worn by Maud Messel (1875 - 1960), whose son became the internationally famous film and costume designer Oliver Messel and her daughter Anne, Countess of Rosse (1902-1992), whose son Lord Snowdon is the acclaimed photographer, filmmaker and designer. Their garments have been lovingly kept, collected and passed down through the family from 1865 to the present day. The surviving clothing tells the story of these six women and traces their rise in society from private middle class comfort to the public stage of the aristocracy. Their story takes us to Darmstadt, in the 1860s, to Linley Sambourne House in Kensington in the 1880s; to Nymans in West Sussex; to Birr Castle in County Offaly, Ireland; to street markets in Florence in 1898 and finally to China in 1904, 1935 and in 2004. Each generation were committed collectors and had an abiding interest in dressmaking, embroidery and botany. The women's taste over a period of nearly one hundred and thirty- five years is revealed through clothing that is romantic in style, influenced by historicism, femininity, travel, orientalism and a love of gardens and flowers. This book which accompanies an exhibition of the clothes at Brighton Museum & Art Gallery in October 2005 Fashion & Fancy Dress: The Messel Family Dress Collection 1865 - 2005 catalogues the entire Messel Dress Collection.