Jane’s Parlour O Douglas
published 1937
[excerpt] Lady Jackson, resplendent in a red and gold brocade tea-gown, swept down on them. "Now, isn't this nice? Father and I just arrived this afternoon by car, and it's grand to have a party right away and see all you people again. I'm so thankful I brought this dress. My dressmaker called it an afternoon dress, though I thought I'd never use it except in the evenings, but it's quite right for a big party, and awful kind of cheery, don't you think?
"Indeed I do," Jean assured her. "It's the perfect garment for a Christmas or rather a New Year party. You look like the spirit of the season."
Lady Jackson beamed. "Now that's nice of you. I wasn't quite sure. I thought Barbara looked a wee thing startled when she saw it—not that she said anything, you know, but a look's enough sometimes to discourage you…”
comments: I liked the top picture, but I did also consider this
splendid dress
for Barbie, perhaps no longer available on Etsy, but the seller has
more…
I have featured many an O
Douglas book over the past year – and indeed have already used one for a Xmas books entry. They are comfort reads to take the
mind off the state of the world, thank you Shay, and this one features
one of my favourites of the recurring characters: Lady Jackson.
Lady J is attending a New Year party at her son’s house,
ready to outrage her daughter-in-law, the haughty Barbara.
As one of the other guests says,
This is a very successful party,” said Jean, ‘‘ just listen to the noise! Quite a lot of people present have come at least fifty miles. They’re surely het at hame, to use a good Scots saying. . . . How Lady Jackson is enjoying herself! She talks to every one whether she knows them or not, and that’s so wise. How a person like that warms the world! What does it matter though the rigidly correct look down their noses at her. She has the laugh of them all the time for she gets more out of life than they ever knew was in it. It’s the difference between a fiddling little electric heater and a leaping fire of logs that never falls to cold ashes—am I getting hopelessly mixed ? ”’
The books can be hopelessly mixed too: snobbish and class conscious, but Douglas’s
treatment of Lady Jackson is always reassuring. (see this
previous post). Tennyson’s famous quote
“Kind hearts are more than coronets,
and simple faith than Norman blood.”
Always seems like a nice theory, not much observed in the
world of mid-20th-century literature, nor in Douglas, but she does try
sometimes…
There is mention in the book of the tradition of a bride
wearing her wedding dress to her first dinner parties – in this story, a child
watching through the stairs is disappointed that Alice has only a diamond
ornament in her hair, not her veils…
This picture, from the Public
Record Office of Northern Ireland, is a bride of the right era,
though definitely on her way to church not dinner party.
The top picture is called 'Sybil Waller in a red and gold dress', is by George Washington Lambert, and can be found on Wikimedia Commons.
And before Tennyson there was Burns:
ReplyDeleteA Prince can mak a belted knight,
A marquis, duke, an’ a’ that!
But an honest man’s aboon his might –
Guid faith, he mauna fa’ that!
And so on ... I always enjoy your posts on O Douglas, Moira, but I feel that that is about as much of her as I want. Chrissie
Tee hee, that's probably about right Chrissie! I'm taking the bullet... Is this what AI will do, try to fillet out the best bits....?
DeleteHow would AI know what the "best" bits are, I wonder? I'd much rather rely on you, Moira!
DeleteGoing back even further, "When Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the gentleman?"
DeleteOh my goodness - just for interest I asked AI to summarise a book I know well. It was appalling - they got the NAMES of the MAIN CHARACTERS wrong. They were just made up from nothing. And what wasn't completely wrong, was just uninspired guff: "the book looks at the relations between the characters...they encounter challenges that test their values and principles." It came across like a High School essay by someone who hasn't actually read the book.
DeleteI've been job hunting and have noticed a lot of online ads for people to "teach" AI. They may be scams, but just the idea of so many different "teachers" gives me the impression that AI will be one confused kid!
DeleteMaybe AI is learning to BS as well as any human?
Delete'Teaching AI'? I did not know about that. I don't want to be an older person complaining that the world is moving too fast, but I am heading that way!
DeleteBertie Wooster is very puzzled by another line from the Burns poem ("The rank is but the guinea's stamp") and thinks a guinea's an awful lot to pay for a stamp - though these days they cost more than the modern equivalent of a guinea.
DeleteSovay
Oh lovely! Thanks for mentioning that! I nearly chose those lines ... Chrissie
DeleteThanks everyone for your contributions!
DeleteResplendent is exactly the right word for the dress in the top pic and the Barbie doll. Love Lady Jackson, because she is kind-hearted and genuine; and knows what people think of her, but doesn’t care. She just goes ahead and says what she thinks, and does what she likes, and wears whatever she wants, whether or not it’s fashionable, suitable for the occasion, or ideal for her shape and age!
ReplyDeleteShe is a marvellous character. I like that O Douglas actually uses her as a filter for other people's character: anyone who doesn't appreciate her good points is definitely in the wrong.
DeleteThat other snob Thirkell also unbent a little in the character of Mr Adams the industrial magnate, whose friendliness and common-sense won over the "county" characters. He's rich of course--was that a prerequisite for acceptance?
ReplyDeleteYes, even Thirkell allows a few in: money, and not trying to pretend to be upper class seem to be the key elements.
DeleteMaybe Lady Jackson would have worn this! https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1348573/coat-liberty/
ReplyDeleteI think she would have enjoyed that (when it was new), and would have looked magnificent clad in the rich colours and materials.
DeleteSorry that was me,
DeleteOh Daniel that's gorgeous, and Lady J would have loved it.
DeleteI am as one with Christine..
... and actually I think the style is much more what I imagine Lady J is wearing. I loved the dress above, and the material is gorgeous, but it's probably not the style for a larger older lady, as Dame Eleanor implies below. the V&A has it covered....
DeleteSybil's dress looks really perfect! Only imagining it on the stouter Mrs Jackson helps one see why conventional Barbara is a thing startled. So often larger ladies are urged (by the conventional) to wear drab dark clothing that I love seeing O. Douglas let Mrs Jackson let herself go with the colours she loves--isn't there another scene where she has to be talked out of a crimson evening dress and into black velvet? After all, Nicole gets to wear gold brocade with cream lace, and I don't see why extravagant colour should be the exclusive province of the young and shapely--especially on dark cold Scottish evenings!
ReplyDeleteYes exactly - I think O Douglas is making her point and believes in colours and a dashing air.
DeleteShe is very good on clothes descriptions, has obviously thought about them, which is why it has been such a pleasure to do so many posts!
I’m trying to think of other larger literary ladies who wear unsuitable clothes. There is Nellie Coker looking like a plum pudding in a fur edged tea gown, and what about Mrs Boffin who, like Lady Jackson, is looked down on because she is ‘new money’ and no taste, although she has a heart of gold. I seem to remember Dickens describing her. In black velvet and feathers looking like a mourning coach horse!
ReplyDeleteThat was me.
DeleteGreat choices Christine! I must try to think of some more
DeleteThe mother in Envious Casca who descends with her "childies"? I seem to remember a rather unsuitable lace blouse. Also Ma Larkin comes to mind, I seem to remember her loving to dress up without caring about whether it's what others think she should wear.
DeleteOh yes, great additions to the list!
DeleteI didn't know about that tradition of a bride wearing her wedding gown to other occasions, Moira! That's interesting. Lady Jackson sounds like a great character, and I like it when authors create recurring characters like that. And now I'll have to think about characters who wear things that others think aren't right/suitable for an occasion. Hm....
ReplyDeleteOh you could definitely do a great post on that Margot!
DeleteRewearing the wedding dress for dinner or evening dress was quite standard although with necessary alterations. I've seen wedding dresses with the necklines and sleeves recut and reworked for this purpose. Aristocratic brides would wear their wedding dress for their first presentation at Court as a married woman, which is why you hear about wedding dresses being made with a Court train, it's in reference to that practice even if the bride is unlikely to be presented at Court, it sounded suitably swanky to have a court train to your wedding dress.
DeleteThanks Daniel, very interesting. I first came across it in Nancy Mitford: Fanny in Love in A Cold Climate is very much disapproved of because she wears a Mainbocher evening dress to a dinner party, when she should have worn her wedding dress
Deleteinteresting that the same garment is described as both a tea gown and an afternoon dress - my understanding was that an afternoon dress is a smart, rather formal but still day-length dress suitable for going out to afternoon tea in, whereas a tea gown is much more relaxed, worn without a corset, and suitable for tea at home with family and close friends. But the lines may have got a bit blurred by 1937. EF Benson describes both Elizabeth Mapp and Diva going out to dinner in a tea gown - this must be in "Miss Mapp" (1922) as Lucia isn't around in Tilling at the time - but I never feel he's very reliable on the subject of women's clothes.
ReplyDeleteSovay
I think there are two different definitions of afternoon dress - one is more like a teagown, smart but flowing and comfortable, and one is more like a cocktail dress - short but very smart. I think drinks rather than tea!
DeleteI have said before that in my very early days of growing up and trying to work out the world, I was mystified by the term 'street-length dress' - used by advice ladies. It sounded to me as though it should be full-length, ie reaching the street. (A knee-length dress meets the knees...) But it is a dress suitable for wearing out in the street, not requiring a limo or taxi, and thus an afternoon or cocktail dress.
I've been confused about tea gowns too, thinking they were strictly for at-home occasions. One website said that they did become accepted for wearing outside the home (if elegant enough I guess). Old-style corsets probably weren't in as much use then, anyway--but would a plus-size woman go out without some kind of, er, shaping? (I'm thinking of Thirkell's Jutland Cottage and the heroine's introduction to the wonderful world of support garments.)
DeleteNot brocade but I think the poppies would appeal to Lady J (and it would certainly startle Barbara)--gown for $6.50. Lots of other gowns at Etsy, not all tea gowns but there are some stunners: https://www.etsy.com/market/1930s_tea_gown
DeleteTea gowns are one of my pet subjects. They started out as a strictly at-home informal garment that you'd wear to drink tea and wear with loosened corsets with your lady friends in between your afternoon doings and getting dressed up for evening occasions. A nice teagown was also appropriate to wear for an intimate at-home dinner with your closest family. By the 1910s, you have tea coats which are not quite dressing gowns, but sort of similar, just a relaxed dressy coat to wear at home in between your more corsetty doings. By the 1920s, it's all about exotic pyjamas and flowy things to lounge about in, it's kind of like a day dress made in an exaggeratedly flowy fantasy style in evening fabrics, or an evening dress that doesn't really feel like it's properly evening-dressy enough.
DeleteSo it's tricky to define, it's one of those things where you know it when you see it. I think a lot of museums get really confused when they're trying to work out teagowns and whether they're rather flamboyant daywear or strangely informal or covered up evening wear.
DeleteBy the 1930s you've also got the tea party frock which is obviously a really nice dress you'd wear to go to a society tea, something flowery and floaty and pretty, and it all gets even more confusing. The tea dress/frock isn't really the same thing as the teagown or tea coat...
What's super interesting, what I've noticed, is that while it was very clear at the time what a tea gown was supposed to be, only a generation later, it was like it just all became forgotten. I've looked at donation records in museums of tea gowns from the 1920s donated in, say, 1960, and even though they're only 30-something years old at the time, the cataloguing is clearly puzzled as to what exactly you'd wear such garments for, like "it looks like a day dress, but why is it all glittery and opulent" or "this must be an evening frock but why is it so different to her other evening dresses"
DeleteIt's literally within living memory and it's forgotten.
Fascinating discussion.
DeleteThanks Daniel - I have made notes on your info, really useful. I think you may have to do a guestpost....?
And I very much recognize both 'not defined but you know it when you see it' and the complete lack of proper definitions. It was the same with bridgecoats
In the early days of the teagown it seems to have been a morally dubious garment as well, because it was worn without a corset which would make it ideal for entertaining a close gentleman friend in the afternoon without having to have one's maid on hand to get the corset off and on again. But this association too seems to have faded very quickly.
ReplyDeleteI can't lay my hand on the exact reference just now but the Provincial Lady has an old teagown (purple velvet, I think) that she wears for dinner at home with the family, c. 1930 - she mentions it because it has a lace trim which Mademoiselle removes and uses to refurbish one of her evening dresses.
Sovay
'Mademoiselle removes, and washes, Honiton lace from old purple velvet every-night tea-gown, and assures me that it will be gentil á croquer on new taffeta.'
DeleteYou have an astonishing memory!
And I am thinking that despite having done six (6) entries on Provincial Lady, there surely could be more
There is a wonderful tradition in Rome (Sposi Novelli) of wearing your wedding dress to a group papal blessing. My brother was posted to Rome soon after his wedding and had heard about this so he and his wife brought her dress and I think he wore his (diplomatic) frak. There is a wonderful picture of John Paul II blessing them and it looks like he performed their wedding! My sister-in-law forgot to cover her arms so she was delayed going into St. Peter's while a Swiss Guard found her a random stole and my brother was so busy praying he did not notice she wasn't beside him for some time.
ReplyDeleteWhat a lovely story - thanks for sharing with us. I hadn't heard of that tradition at all.
Delete