On Tuesday 2nd March, I attended a lecture lunch at the National Trust Property Killerton in Devon.
Killerton houses a wonderful costume collection and they have swapped the entire collection this year to display a collection of elegant dresses over the last 200 years: 1770’s to 1970’s.
There is such a lot to the lecture, I’m going to do a number of posts about it over the next week or so. The lecture was given by Shelley Tobin, the curator of the museum for the last 17 year (so she really knows her stuff).
The exhibition opens next Wednesday at Killerton, and will run for about a year. So why not try and get along? You won’t be disappointed with the house, gardens and costume museum.
Coco Chanel and her influence on fashion.
Shelley Tobin started by explaining the influence of Coco Chanel on fashion in the 1950’s. Chanel turned on it’s head hundreds of years of fashion advice. Up until Chanel, women bought expensive jewellery and very impractical clothes if they wanted to look elegant, often with uncomfortable undergarments : stays and corsets etc. However, Chanel said:
“Everything about fashion must be practical…Jewellery must be fake.”
For thousands of wealthy women before her, the thought of wearing fake jewels would have made them have a turn.
Chanel’s other ethos was to try and get women to appear to “not age”. (Apparently she also said men hate women who cry!)
Chanel was the creator of the “Little Black Dress”. She said women of any age can wear it.
Sir Bernard and Lady Docker - the Posh and Becks of the 1950’s.
The Docker’s were photographed wherever they went. Lady Nora Docker was Bernard’s third wife and was a dancer before she married the multi-millionaire head of Daimler.
Lady Docker was a self-styled bottle blonde. She had 1950’s “bling” down to a T and always wore very OTT clothes (though apparently all her jewellery was real.) It was an insult at that time to be compared to Lady Docker.
She was also famous for creating a Daimer car with gold plate instead of chrome bumpers, and with Zebra skin seats (yes, real Zebra skin). She didn’t get the difference between elegant and vulgar, and is proof that wealth doesn’t always mean elegant.
Coming up next time: 1770’s elegance.
