Barbara Cartland is the gift that keeps giving.
Last week I did a post on Matthew Sweet's wonderful new book, a biography of Barbara, The Great Dictator.
Barbara Cartland: Give Pink a Chance
I was going to do another post about her anyway, specifically on her books, but then an equally important aspect took centre stage.
The author liked my review, and also asked about Barbara's fashion sense.
And then.... blogfriend Daniel Milford Cottam, staunch supporter of Clothes in Books and remarkable fashion expert (he's a regular on here) revealed in the comments that ....
... he owned some of Barbara's outfits, which were sold off at auction after she died
Well! Of course I immediately asked him if he could send some photos, and he was most obliging.
So in a first for the blog, this is going to be mostly pictures, with some comments from Daniel. (We'll look at the books in a future post)
Daniel Milford Cottam: so I got them out of storage and took some quick record shots for you. If I was doing proper formal photography I'd be presenting them a LOT more nicely on properly padded figures with steaming on the creases, but these are good enough I think. [CiB: they are most certainly good enough, they're lovely, with fast turnaround]
The coat isn't exactly the same one in the signed photo [top of post, this was the photo she gave out as part of her press pack to visitors and interviewers], but it is a 1960s Norman Hartnell. Not 100% sure what the fur is, but I suspect it's arctic fox.
The pink dress and coat are also 1960s Norman Hartnell and I took a pic of the wear on the sleeve cos you can tell she wore these clothes for decades and really looked after them even when they began to show wear. There are signs that the dress has been very carefully let out all over to accommodate slight increases.
Here's the dress worn under the Hartnell coat:
...and a later (I'd say 1980s/90s) floaty wool dress with embroidered appliqués made by a "Court Dressmaker" called Patricia Sears. The back of the dress has this floating pink hem-length capey drapey overlay hiding the zipper, which is also a VERY Queen Mum style detail
CiB: Thanks so much to Daniel for getting them out and photographing them just for us. My view of her fashion choices is that she decided what she liked, and what suited her, and stuck with it - good for her. She dressed to please herself, and did it with style and panache.
Here's one final joyous detail from Daniel:
"I love this mannequin, it's VERY useful for (let us say) more 'matronly' garments as when I put these on my more fashion modelesque mannis, they look absolutely daft and way too large."
Thank you! I just painted my hallway a couple of weeks ago so this was the first time I'd used it as a backdrop for object photography and honestly, I can't think of better pieces to juxtapose with the new wall colour.
ReplyDeleteOh yes! I was struck with what a good background it was....
DeleteI do also have the hat that she wore with the coat, but it was originally trimmed with fur and the fur was removed leaving all the tacking stitches (very common, you'd take the fur off your clothes all the time for cleaning or moving to another garment or just putting into cold storage) so I didn't send a pic of that, but it's basically a red wool toque/kind of pixie cap with three hat pins (with red wool heads) and loads of cut tacking threads
ReplyDeleteActually, it's possible the collar on the coat was originally on the hat, which would make the ensemble look much more like that in the photograph, but I don't think so.
DeleteThis is all fascinating!
DeleteWow, this is great! Such deep knowledge of clothes in general and these clothes in particular! The photos themselves are gorgeous, too.
ReplyDeleteThanks Margot, so lucky to have Daniel share the pictures and expertise with us
DeleteSo fun to see - or should I say So ... fun ... to ... see! Thank you, Daniel and Moira!
ReplyDeleteDaniel is spoiling us
DeleteGorgeous colours! Fascinating to see the pictures and read Daniel's comments. A treat indeed. Chrissie
ReplyDeleteI know - something really different but still literature related
DeleteRandom thought, could you describe this post as Clothes Outside Books?
ReplyDeleteI should've renamed the blog for the day
DeleteOh wow! I found a photo of BC in the pink dress and coat and she wore it in January 1988 "to receive the Médaille de Vermeil de la Ville de Paris, the highest honour of the city of Paris, for publishing 25 million books in France". So it was already pushing 20 years old when she wore it in Paris. See https://www.bedfordtoday.co.uk/lifestyle/homes-and-gardens/thatched-great-barford-cottage-once-owned-by-romance-novelist-dame-barbara-cartland-goes-on-market-for-ps1million-3697244
ReplyDeleteAmazing to pin it down to a significant event in Barbara's literary career.
And below that image on Google: https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-romantic-novelist-dame-barbara-cartland-97-speaks-at-the-opening-of-105990824.html
DeleteIt's the last dress under the coat!
The irony is, I was looking for Barbara wearing a red coat, thinking I'd find a match for that more easily but instead I spotted the two pink ones in the results.
DeleteOh well-spotted. Loving the hats, and also the remarkable strings of pearls in the second picture
DeleteThank you so much! I'm not the biggest fan of pink but for a 1960s Norman Hartnell I'd take any colour at all! And I love that Cartland kept her clothes for so long and let them out and took care of them. The antithesis of fast fashion.
ReplyDeleteThat was very much a couture way of thinking. I think it was Balmain who offered a free of charge altering/remodelling service for garments brought back by the original client within five or ten years of purchase (typically for hem adjustments, recutting a neckline or taking in/letting out). They stopped offering that guarantee about 20, 25 years ago, but it was very much a thing. If you could afford to commission a Dior or a Givenchy, you would also expect to be able to bring it back to the salon to be altered/reworked, so while the clothes were EXPENSIVE they were also intended to serve and last for a long time and couture houses actively encouraged this and included it as part of their original business model.
DeleteAlong those lines, in the 1960s, Dior would allow clients such as Betsy Bloomingdale to have the remnants/offcuts from the making up of the dresses they ordered so that if they needed extra fabric for patches, repairs or letting out, this was an option. See https://collections.vam.ac.uk/search/?page=1&page_size=15&q=Dior+Bloomingdale for an example!
DeleteOh, I love that 60s coat/dress combo! And how great to see the evidence of the clothes having been lived in and loved for decades.
ReplyDelete