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This sterling silver hairbrush made in Birmingham in 1903 is just one piece out of a very substantial dressing table set that includes hairbrushes, mirrors, a looking glass, a tray, a comb, clothes brushes, perfume bottles, a glove hook, a perfume bottle opener, a boot hook, a shoe horn, a manicure set, powder pots, a needle case, an appointment book, a miniature Bible, a hair tidy, a hatpin container, an appointment book and even a letter opener, all of which belonged to one of my Great, Great Aunts. All of them feature elegant and ornate repoussé work of a very high standard. Each item depicts a beautiful Art Nouveau maiden in profile with long flowing tresses that twist and curl about her as she stands amid some sunflowers, plucking blooms. This style of design is typical of the curvilinear floral and female motifs so popular during the Art Nouveau period, epitomised by artists like Alphonse Mucha and Gustav Klimt. As a child, I called the Art Nouveau lady on these pieces, Clytie, after the Greek mythological legend of Clytie the sea nymph who fell in love with Apollo and was transformed into a sunflower.
The theme for the 11th of December “Looking Close… on Friday” is “brush”. I thought this silver backed hairbrush made by the Birmingham silversmiths Levi and Salaman in 1903 was an elegant choice. I hope that you will agree. The hairbrush features a pad of boar bristles which were stiff enough to brush the thick and long hair grown by Edwardian women to form the ornate and stylish ‘transformations’ (hairstyles) of the first decade of the Twentieth Century.
This hairbrush is hallmarked with the initials “L.&S.” which are the initials for the silversmiths Levi and Salaman. Founded in 1870 by Phineas Harris Levi in partnership with Joseph Wolff Salaman the two men established a silversmiths firm. They later became proprietors of the Potosi Silver Company in 1878. The firm became Levi and Salaman in the early Twentieth Century and became Levi and Salaman Ltd. in 1910. In 1921 the firm was amalgamated into Barker Brothers Silversmiths Limited.
Our Nevern Dressing Table has a hud with four colour versions of the woods and four metals for you to mix and match! It's just 4Li and available at this round of Belle.
Belle opens on the 20th at 12pm SLT - maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Belle/140/111/994
Upton House is a country house , in the English county of Warwickshire. It is in the care of the National Trust.
When I stood at the door of this room at Whitehern House in Hamilton memories of my Aunt Irene's house on Pacific Ave. in Toronto came flooding back. One of the bedrooms in her house had a dresser almost identical to this one and suddenly I could hear the squeaks and creaks of the hall floor boards, I could smell Uncle Walter's cigars and I could see Aunt Irene as she looked when I was a child--all rouge and rhinestones.
Aunt Irene and Uncle Walter, never moved out of her parents home and so she looked after her father, Papa Jacobi, until his death. A visit to Aunt Irene's as children was always fascinating because the house was old, the furniture was still in the same place her parents had placed it when they bought the house in the 1910's and, best of all, that furniture had plastic on it. I've written about that in the past and all the joys as children of sticking to plastic on the couch and making funny noises when we stood up. Very inexpensive entertainment!
Every time I would go to the house the first thing I wanted to do was explore--children always like to do that when they're visiting in order to make discoveries about their surroundings. At Aunt Irene's we had to surmount the greeting to Papa Jacobi before we were allowed to make our explorations though. Papa had had a stroke and this former genial and jovial man was unknown to me. For me he was always the expressionless and scary fellow I was required to kiss hello and who could only grunt a greeting in return. Poor man, he had been such a lively and busy sort of man during his life.
Once the greeting had been accomplished my brother and I could look through the rooms to our heart's content which seemed to amuse the adults. What I always hoped to play with was Aunt Irene's Loblaws doll. It stood about 3 ft. high and was dressed 'to the nines' in clothes she had made for it. The doll, known as Miss Lucky Green Stamps, stood in the corner of the bedroom with the dresser that looks like this one and she had a bag over her head so she wouldn't get dusty. Either she was concerned about dust or Aunt Irene was a ghoul.
However, the most exciting thing was a trip to the old cellar. My Aunt's son still lived at home at that point and did a lot of woodworking in the cellar but the most shocking thing was the Playboy pin-ups he had on the walls down there. At that time those pin-ups were almost innocent compared to what one might find today but then it was the most astonishing thing I'd ever seen--ladies without much in the way of clothing having their pictures taken?!?
So as I got this picture and then walked back down the hall I was sure I could hear squeaks and creaks and smell the remnants of an old cigar.
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My website: www.hollycawfieldphotography.net/
My digital art experiments:
www.flickr.com/photos/188106602@N04/
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This year the FFF+ Group have decided to have a monthly challenge called "Freestyle On The Fifth". A different theme chosen by a member of the group each month, and the image is to be posted on the 5th of the month.
This month the theme, "bird" was chosen by Beverley (www.flickr.com/photos/137349496@N06/).
This is my first invitation to participate in "Freestyle On The Fifth", so I would just like to thank the FFF+ Group for allowing me to add my photos to the pool.
This final third entry was inspired by the "L'Air du Temps" Lalique perfume bottle which stands before the mirror. It was the very first collectible I ever bought with my own money at an auction house. I saw it sitting on a shelf beneath a spotlight and I just loved the elegant bird stopper. Nina Ricci's most famous perfume, "L'Air du Temps", created in France in 1948, means "Air of Time". French glass designer René Jules Lalique designed the iconic avian bottle stopper.
So the lady whose dressing table this is must love birds because she has a number of avian themed items sitting on it.
In addition to the Nina Ricci "L'Air du Temps" Lalique perfume bottle, she has a beautiful eighteen carat and seed pearl lovers swallow brooch from 1914. It comes in its original box. It must have been a gift to her from her sweetheart; perhaps a soldier from the trenches in Flanders Fields, given to her as a token of love and a reminder of him whilst she waited for him to come home. I wonder if he did?
The bird in the cage is obviously not real. It is a French Regency automaton clock from the 1820s. When wound, the bird shakes itself from side to side and serves as the minute hand on the clock as it works itself around the circumference of the cage. The hand that moves around the centre is the hour hand of the clock. The clock itself is made of brass, which was very fashionable in the Regency period. Considering its age, it keeps remarkably good time and loses only around a minute a day.
So here we have my "Bird Lady's Dressing Table" entry.
Cavendish Mews is a smart set of flats in Mayfair where flapper and modern woman, the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd has set up home after coming of age and gaining her allowance. To supplement her already generous allowance, and to break away from dependence upon her family, Lettice has established herself as a society interior designer, so her flat is decorated with a mixture of elegant antique Georgian pieces and modern Art Deco furnishings, using it as a showroom for what she can offer to her well heeled clients.
Today however we are at Glynes, the grand Georgian family seat of the Chetwynds in Wiltshire, and the home of Lettice’s parents, the presiding Viscount and Countess of Wrexham and the heir, their eldest son Leslie. Lettice is visiting her old family home for the wedding of Leslie to Arabella, the daughter of their neighbours, Lord Sherbourne and Lady Isobel Tyrwhitt. Today is the big day, and as the weakening November sun rises in what is a remarkably sunny day for the bride and groom, Lettice will shortly join the guests to watch her brother and his future wife exchange vows at the chapel in Glynes village. Even now she can hear the chimes from the belfry ring across the rolling green undulations of Lettice’s father’s estate, calling the great and good of the village and the county to come and bear witness to the wedding of their future squire.
We find ourselves in Lettice’s boudoir at Glynes, a room which she considers somewhat of a time capsule now with its old fashioned Edwardian furnishings and mementoes of those halcyon pre-war summers. She hardly even considers it her room any more, so far removed is she from that giddy teenager who had crushes on her elder brothers’ friends and loved chintz covered furniture, floral wallpaper and sweet violet perfume. Lettice stands at the window of her bedroom, lolling against the dusky pink and pale green, slightly faded floral folded back curtains. Even as she stands there she can almost catch a whiff the violet perfume and hear her girlish whispers and giggles of yesteryear, like ghosts of a distant time and place. Beyond her in the great park, some stubborn traces of morning mist still loiter around a copse of trees, and the birds twitter in the topiaries and the parterre garden that lie beyond the sweeping gravel turning circle of driveway. Fingering the fine lace curtain that is always draped across the glass of her window, Lettice sighs. A pale, diffused light falls upon her face, the sunlight warming her cheeks. She closes her eyes, blocking out the cheerful golden gleam in the pale blue sky dotted with fluffy white clouds tinged with pale grey and washed out ultramarine.
“Were you imagining the bells ringing for your wedding, Tice?” a voice interrupts her thoughts.
“Oh!” Lettice gasps, spinning around, dropping the curtain pulled back idly in her hands, releasing a myriad of dust motes tumbling into the sunlight streaming through the window. “Leslie! You startled me!”
“Sorry Tice.” her elder brother says, as he walks into the room.
“Look at you, my big brother,” Lettice smiles proudly. “All dressed up for his wedding day.”
“I feel ridiculously overdressed.” Leslie says, running a finger around the inside of his starched collar uncomfortably.
She walks up to Leslie and tweaks his bow tie that he has knocked awry with his fingering of his collar before taking a step back and taking in her handsome brother dressed in his new morning suit.
“You never did like dressing up for fancy occasions like Mamma’s Hunt Ball, did you, Leslie?” she asks.
“Never. Give me a tweed jacket and tie any day.”
“Oh no Leslie!” Lettice chides, not unkindly. “Not today. It’s your wedding day, and even our tenant farmers who would rather be in the comfort of their workaday clothes get dressed up for their wedding.”
“I feel…” he begins.
“Sshhh!” Lettice puts one of her elegantly manicured fingers to his lips to silence her brother. “Today isn’t really about you and your feelings, Leslie. It’s about Bella. And Bella would be so disappointed if you weren’t turned out as splendidly as you are.” She considers his appearance, as if seeing him for the first time. “You know, it’s a shame you don’t like getting dressed up. You really scrub up rather handsomely. I can see what Bella saw beneath all that tweed and houndstooth you habitually wear.”
“Need to wear, for estate business.” Leslie corrects his sister. “Imagine the distrust if I turned up at one of the estate farms or a meeting of the tenants dressed in something like this! They’d think I didn’t understand a thing about farming.”
“Well, today is not about farming.” Lettice replies kindly. “It’s about pomp and show from two of the county’s great families, and no-one does pomp quite as well as the Chetwynds and the Tyrwhitts.”
“Were you thinking about a wedding of your own just now, listening to the bells?” Leslie asks again.
“Me? No,” Lettice replies. “The bells aren’t tolling for me yet.” She brushes a stray piece of lint off his frock coat. “No,” she adds dreamily. “I was just thinking about how often before the war I used to stand at the window, longing to be in the wider world.”
“And now you’re a part of it.”
“Indeed.” Lettice muses contentedly. “I was considering how much has changed since then.”
“Ahh yes, those halcyon days before the war.” Leslie sighs.
“I think before the war was the last time we were all in the house together: you, me, Lally and Lionel, Mater and Pater. One big, happy family.”
Leslie scoffs. “Is that what we were?”
“No,” Lettice admits. “Lionel has always courted trouble and caused us pain, long before he had to go to Kenya in disgrace. Do you remember how much he enjoyed teasing Lally and I when we were children?”
“Relentlessly.” Leslie sighs. “Especially you. Yet you two are the closest in age and should have been best friends. He always did have a beastly, nasty streak.”
“And you had to come and defend us.”
“Endlessly! Kenya might agree with his health, but Lionel’s still as mean and nasty now as he was then.”
“Oh yes. I’m well aware of that. We all are. Even Mater and Pater are acutely aware of it since it’s been so nice doing without it for the last few years. Who will defend me now or hold me in a special place in his heart, now that you are getting married, and I will be usurped by Bella for your affections?”
“You’ll always have a special place in my heart, mon petite soeur!” Leslie laughs. “You of all people should know that! You’re my baby sister. Eldest brothers always have special places in their hearts for their little sisters. Anyway, I thought things were going well between you and Spencely.”
“Oh they are, they are.” Lettice says distractedly.
“Then surely there is a place in his heart, a special place, just for you.”
“I don’t know. I don’t know.” Lettice says as she turns away from her brother and walks over to the floral chaise lounge on which sit her new Harriet Milford made hat, her lemon yellow gloves and her matching handbag.
“You have doubts as to Spencely’s affections, Tice?” Leslie looks to his sister in concern.
“Oh no!” she assures him. “I’m sure he’s fond of me. It’s just…”
“Yes?” Leslie’s eyebrows arch over his questioning eyes.
“It’s just that I haven’t even met his parents yet. Surely you would think if he was serious about our romance and our future together that he would introduce me to his parents.”
“Have you asked him, Tice?”
“Several times, but Selwyn always dismisses it with a wave of his hand. He says I’ll get to meet them in the fullness of time. Surely after all these months, it’s time, even if we don’t get married yet. It’s a sign of intent.”
Leslie thinks for a moment. “The Duke and Duchess of Walmford.” He ponders. “I can’t say I know anything much about them, what with being buried in estate business. The social round is more Mater’s thing than mine.”
“Oh I can read all I want to in Debrett’s*, every bit as easily as Mamma can: names, dates of birth, clubs, lineage, pedigree. That isn’t meeting someone.”
“True.”
“I just have this nagging feeling in the back of my mind, and it curdles my stomach whenever I raise the moot point between us.”
“You don’t think he’s a bounder, do you? Spencely’s never struck me as being a cad. In fact, I always thought he was rather decent when it came to the ladies, especially when you consider that London’s society ballrooms are full of men like Lionel, whose predatory advances towards the fairer sex aren’t bundled off to Nairobi for society’s greater good like Pappa and Mamma did with him.”
“For all our good.” Lettice corrects him. She looks down at the oriental carpet beneath their feet, rich and exotic, yet also sadly worn and faded in places. A troubled look crosses her pale face. “It’s not actually Selwyn that troubles me. It’s his mother.”
“Lady Zinnia?”
“Yes. Do you remember her when we, well when I was little, and they used to come here for the hunt? You are ten years older than me. I can only vaguely remember a grumpy woman in black dragging Selwyn away from me after she caught us playing in the hedgerows together. Selwyn said that he received a dreadful tongue lashing from her, and there was no puddng for him that night. What was she like?”
“Well, it’s hard to say.”
“You don’t remember her?”
“Oh I do, but then you also have all the mythology about her wrapping around her and obscuring my memories of her.”
“What mythology, Leslie?”
“Oh just that she was a beauty of the age, a glacial, imperious beauty who was born to be the Duchess of Walmsford. I remember the photos of her in Mamma’s copies of The Tatler**, The Lady***, Country Life**** and Horse and Hound*****. Except for the latter she was always dressed in the most elegant gowns, dripping in diamonds, a tiara atop her head, entertaining the country’s great and good at one of their estates or another. It clouds what you remember.”
“Did she speak to you?”
“I’m sure she did. I can’t say as I remember, but I was only a teenage boy. She wouldn’t have been interested in me. My presence would barely have even registered with her.” He takes his right hand to his chin and rubs it with his index finger as he thinks. “Although one thing I do remember quite clearly about her was her laugh.”
“Well, that’s more than I remember Leslie. I just remember this sort of dull impressionistic like face screaming at me. What was it like that you remember it?”
“It was like breaking glass: not shrill, beautiful, but cruel. Now, when I think back on those occasions as an adult and being more worldly, if you can call working on the estate worldly, I think she flirted with men at the hunt a lot.”
“But she was married to the Duke then, wasn’t she?”
“The Duke didn’t always come, for whatever reason, and when he didn’t, she flirted with all the men, married or otherwise. I suppose being friends with Alice Keppel******, she was part of King Edward’s racy Sandringham set where flirtations, and more,” He blushes self-consciously. “Were de riguer*******. I think she liked being a great beauty and having men, all sorts of powerful and influential men, in her thrall.”
“And ladies?”
“I don’t seem to remember her spending a great deal of time with the ladies when she visited us. I don’t think she was a drawing room type, like Mamma is, dunking dry biscuits in tea and gossiping over embroidery. She liked witty people, men especially. I think the company of most women bored her as I don’t think she cared for gossip, especially not county gossip which she considered parochial. I remember she liked talking about politics and art: things as a young teenager I had no head for, and if I’m honest, I still don’t. I’m just your dull parochial country squire. Give me a cattle show or hunt meet over the Houses of Parliament any day.”
“Stop that Leslie!” Lettice admonishes him with a gentle slap to his forearm. “You’re a fine man. The world isn’t made up entirely of politicians and great thinkers. Bella’s lucky to have a man as loving, kind and caring as you.” She smiles at her brother. “But go on about Lady Zinnia.”
“Lady Zinnia.” Leslie thinks. “She was clever, and she enjoyed making the men laugh. Engaging with men was almost like a sport to her. Even when we went on the foxhunt, she was out in front with the men. She was an excellent horsewoman and could keep up with the head of the pack, even though she rode side-saddle. She was spirited. Yes,” Leslie nods. “That’s a good word for her. She was spirited. Why all this sudden interest in Lady Zinnia, Tice?”
“Because I think she is the problem between Selwyn and I, or at least the obstacle to us actually getting married and being happily together.” Lettice admits. “I don’t think she likes me, or she doesn’t approve of me.”
“But you just said yourself that she’s never met you, well not since you were a child. How can you say she doesn’t like or approve of you if she’s never met you as an adult?”
“I can’t quite pinpoint it, but that’s what I sense, Leslie.”
“That’s a very grave allegation, Tice.” Leslie’s face clouds over. “What proof do you have?”
“I don’t have any, really,” Lettice admits guiltily. “But it’s just something I feel, here in the pit of my stomach. It’s like a canker, sitting there.”
“You must have more to go on than that in order to feel this way, surely Tice.”
“Well, take today for example. I asked Selwyn to come, but apparently his family is entertaining his Uncle Bertram and Aunt Rosalind, the Fox-Chavers, at their Scottish estate, Kenmarric.”
“Well to be fair, Tice, if he hasn’t made formal overtures of marriage, it’s really not appropriate for him to attend as your guest. Besides it is partridge season, Tice.”
“Yes, I know.” Lettice admits with a huff. “But it seems that whenever we seem to be making a bit of progress, plan something special beyond a dinner or a picnic, something always comes up.” She rubs a worn patch of the rug distractedly at her feet with the toe of her golden yellow leather shoe. “And it usually involves his cousin, Pamela Fox-Chavers.”
“I’ve not heard of her.”
“She hasn’t been presented yet. Apparently, she debuts next year. There is to be a rather grand coming out ball for her in London at the Cecil********. She’s young and pretty from what I’ve gathered.”
“Tice! Tice!” Leslie puts his hands firmly on Lettice’s sunken shoulders, squeezing them comfortingly through the lemon satin capped sleeves of the frock Gerald made for her for the wedding. She looks up into her brother’s face unhappily. “It sounds to me like you’re making something up out of… well, where there is nothing.”
“I knew you’d say that, Leslie.” Lettice pouts as she sticks her toe into the silk of the rug.
“Don’t do that, or you’ll wear a hole in it. As the future master of Glynes and all the expenses that go with it, I don’t want to have to replace the carpet unnecessarily.”
“Oh no,” Lettice stops rubbing the carpet and looks back into her brother’s face, a sudden steeliness replacing the soft and teary vulnerability in her eyes a moment ago. “I want you to promise me that when you inherit Glynes, one of the first things you will do is let me redecorate my boudoir.” She looks around her at the Eighteenth Century floral wallpaper, the heavy Art Nouveau dressing table, the chintz chaise lounge. “Mamma keeps this room as a mausoleum. It’s like by keeping it exactly as I left it before the war, the more obliging, more obsequious, less irritating, less outspoken Lettice of my teenage years will come back. But she won’t! Do you know that none of those photos on the chimneypiece, except perhaps the one of Nanny Webb and I, are my photos in here? I took all mine to London when I moved there. Mamma put these in here to fill the space. She even put that one of me as a flower girl at Lally’s wedding in pride of place on that table, just to remind me of what a dutiful daughter I was. There is nothing of me in this room now. Nothing!”
“Alright, Tice,” Leslie chuckles. “I agree. But only if you’ll put these silly ideas of Lady Zinnia trying to come between you and Spencely out of your mind.” He looks earnestly at her. “It’s not uncommon for an older male cousin to escort his younger female cousin to functions and social engagements prior to her coming out. This, what’s her name?”
“Pamela,” Lettice spits. “Pamela Fox-Chavers.”
“Pamela will benefit from knowing someone at the balls and other functions of the Season that she is to attend. As I said before, Spencely strikes me as a good egg when it comes to the ladies, so he’ll help keep her safe, advise her about the SITs and NSITs*********, and probably stop her from getting into mischief. Don’t get jealous of a girl whom you don’t even know, and whom I’m sure you’ve no reason to be jealous of. You tell me I’m handsome and smart, well,” He spins her around to face a full length cheval mirror where she can see her reflection. “Look at yourself. You are beautiful and petite. You are smart. You live your own life up in London, away from Mater and Pater, which is more than a lot of girls of your age and background have. And you have a very successful business, which you created – no-one else. Think on that the next time you go to give me a compliment. You’re the most successful of all of us. Lionel lives as a rake in disgrace in Nairobi where he can do no harm other than drink too much gin or race a few thoroughbreds that really aren’t ready to be raced. Lally is married to a nice, if dull chap, and has brought forth a few progeny to carry on Charles’ line. I’ll inherit this old pile of bricks and pray I can weather the storm and keep it all going so that one of Bella’s and my progeny can take over when I’m gone. But you, you leave a legacy of beautiful interiors that are your own distinctive style. You influence taste and fashions. You are one of those Bright Young Things********** the papers are full of, and whom the world will talk about long after I’m buried and forgotten in that churchyard.” He points out the window, across the undulating hill to where the sound of the bells is coming from.
“Do you really think that, Leslie?” Lettice asks.
“Well of course I do, Tice.” he concurs. “We all do. Well, maybe not Mamma, and certainly not Lionel. But Lally, Father, Bella and I do, so we outnumber them. Nigel, Isobel and Sherbourne too. We’re all so proud of you. Even Mamma, though she would rather eat a pound of nails than say it, must have at least some unexpressed admiration for what you do and what you’ve achieved, Tice.”
“Leslie! Leslie there you are, old boy! Come on!” Lionel’s unusually suntanned face and sun bleached sandy blonde hair poke around the frame of Lettice’s dressing room door. “Oh, morning, Lettuce Leaf.” He nods to his little sister as an afterthought.
Lettice cringes at the use of her most hated childhood nickname, which is tolerable, or even amusing on occasion when said by her best friend Gerald, but like poison spat at her when it comes from her hated sibling.
“Look I hate to break this tender moment of sibling bonding between you two up.” Their brother sneers mockingly at them from beneath his mean sun blonde pencil moustache, mischief in his cold, glinting eyes. “I mean, it really is charming and all, but I’d like to remind you Leslie, that the car is waiting downstairs and the bells toll. Listen, can’t you hear them?” Dressed in his morning suit with a boutonniere of a white rose and some Queen Anne’s lace sticking from his lapel, he poses dramatically, lolling against the doorframe, a hand held to his ear as he perks up and peers through Lettice’s window into the bright morning beyond.
“Bugger off Lionel, you pillock!” growls Leslie warningly. “You’re only here for a few days. Pray you don’t leave with broken teeth.”
“Alright!” Lionel holds up his hands in defence. “Don’t shoot, or punch me.” He sneers again. “I’m just the messenger. Mater and Pater are downstairs with your best man, Leslie, and he’s getting anxious that his sister is going to arrive at the church to get married before you two do. The olds are trying to placate him, so I’d shake a leg and get a move on, if I were you.”
Smiling smarmily, Lionel slinks away, leaving Lettice and Leslie alone again.
“Look, I have to go, but, but we’ll talk later, Tice, alright?” Leslie assures his sister.
“No we won’t,” Lettice says, smiling sadly and reaching up to her favourite brother’s boutonniere, running her fingers along the soft silken petal of the white rose buds. “Not today at any rate.” She pats his arm comfortingly. “We both may hate Lionel, but even though I’d rather eat a pound of nails than say it, he’s right. The bells are chiming, and you’re getting married. I can’t hold you up from the most important moment of your life, and Bella would never speak to me again if I did. Off you go.”
“Tice,” Leslie begins, a hundred unfinished thoughts catching in his voice.
“I’ll be alright. I have Gerald to escort me this afternoon.” She smiles as she sees a mixture of anxiety and excitement in his eyes. “Just tell Mamma I’m fixing my hat and I’ll be down in a few minutes.”
“Alright, Tice.” He starts to leave. “I’ll see you in the chapel then.”
“Just try and stop me,” she replies with a smile. “It isn’t every day my big brother gets married. Now go, before Nigel has an aneurism on the drawing room carpet.”
With the pattering of hurried footsteps, Leslie disappears around the frame of the door and runs down the hall.
Lettice picks up her hat and walks over to her dressing table where she withdraws one of the long hatpins in the container standing on its surface. Carefully positioning her pretty lemon yellow straw hat with organza and artificial flower decoration against her straw yellow blonde chignon and affixes it with the hatpin. She listens to the crisp sound of the pin piercing the straw of her hat and feels the pin slide through the back of her hair. She tugs the brim gently, just to make sure her millinery is firmly in place and sighs as she considers her reflection. She admires her figure, expertly encased in the pale yellow satin frock with the Peter Pan collar*********** Gerald has made for her for the wedding. The two strings of perfect graduating creamy white pearls her parents gave her for her coming of age sit across her collar bones and a corsage of white roses sits daintily on her wrist.
Satisfied, she wanders back to the window and looks down. Through the lace scrim, she can see Nigel Tyrwhitt, Leslie’s bride-to-be’s brother and his best man, walk across the gravel towards her father’s Daimler, followed closely by Leslie. The two talk, but with the window closed and being two storeys up, Lettice can’t hear what they are saying, but she catches a waft of their laughter through the glass and knows that whatever they are saying, they are very happy that Leslie is about to marry Arabella. In the distance, the Glynes Church of England chapel bells peal, beckoning guest to enter to witness the marriage of Arabella Tyrwhitt, only daughter of Lord Sherboune and Lady Isobel Tyrwhitt to Leslie Cheywnd, son and heir of the Viscount and Viscountess of Wrexham, forever enmeshing two of the county’s great families.
*The first edition of Debrett's Peerage of England, Scotland, and Ireland, containing an Account of all the Peers, 2 vols., was published in May 1802, with plates of arms, a second edition appeared in September 1802, a third in June 1803, a fourth in 1805, a fifth in 1806, a sixth in 1808, a seventh in 1809, an eighth in 1812, a ninth in 1814, a tenth in 1816, an eleventh in 1817, a twelfth in 1819, a thirteenth in 1820, a fourteenth in 1822, a fifteenth in 1823, which was the last edition edited by Debrett, and not published until after his death. The next edition came out in 1825. The first edition of The Baronetage of England, containing their Descent and Present State, by John Debrett, 2 vols., appeared in 1808. Today, Debrett's is a British professional coaching company, publisher and authority on etiquette and behaviour. It was founded in 1769 with the publication of the first edition of The New Peerage. The company takes its name from its founder, John Debrett.
**Tatler is a British magazine published by Condé Nast Publications focusing on fashion and lifestyle, as well as coverage of high society and politics. It is targeted towards the British upper-middle class and upper class, and those interested in society events.
***The Lady is one of Britain's longest-running women's magazines. It has been in continuous publication since 1885 and is based in London. The magazine was founded by Thomas Gibson Bowles (1842–1922), the maternal grandfather of the aristocratic and controversial Mitford sisters. Bowles also founded the English magazine Vanity Fair. He gave the Mitford girls' father (David Freeman-Mitford, Second Baron Redesdale) his first job: general manager of the magazine. Early contributors included Nancy Mitford and Lewis Carroll, who compiled a puzzle for the title
****Country Life is a British weekly perfect-bound glossy magazine that is a quintessential English magazine founded in 1897, providing readers with a weekly dose of architecture, gardens and interiors. It was based in London at 110 Southwark Street until March 2016, when it became based in Farnborough, Hampshire. The frontispiece of each issue usually features a portrait photograph of a young woman of society, or, on occasion, a man of society.
*****Horse and Hound is the oldest equestrian weekly magazine of the United Kingdom. Its first edition was published in 1884. The magazine contains horse industry news, reports from equestrian events, veterinary advice about caring for horses, and horses for sale.
******Alice Frederica Keppel was a British society hostess and a long-time mistress and confidante of King Edward VII. Keppel grew up at Duntreath Castle, the family seat of the Edmonstone baronets in Scotland. She was the youngest child of Mary Elizabeth, née Parsons, and Sir William Edmonstone, 4th Baronet. In 1891 she married George Keppel, an army officer, and they had two daughters. Alice Keppel became one of the best society hostesses of the Edwardian era. Her beauty, charm and discretion impressed London society and brought her to the attention of the future King Edward VII in 1898, when he was still Prince of Wales, whose mistress she remained until his death, lightening the dark moods of his later years, and holding considerable influence. Through her younger daughter, Sonia Cubitt , Alice Keppel is the great-grandmother of Queen Camilla, the former mistress and second wife of King Edward VII's great-great-grandson King Charles III.
*******In French, de rigueur means "out of strictness" or "according to strict etiquette"; one definition of our word rigor, to which rigueur is related, is "the quality of being strict, unyielding, or inflexible." In English, we tend to use de rigueur to describe a fashion or custom that is so commonplace within a context that it seems a prescribed, mandatory part of it.
********The Hotel Cecil was a grand hotel built 1890–96 between the Thames Embankment and the Strand in London, England. It was named after Cecil House, a mansion belonging to the Cecil family, which occupied the site in the Seventeenth Century. The hotel was the largest in Europe when it opened, with more than eight hundred rooms. The proprietor, Jabez Balfour, later went bankrupt and was sentenced to 14 years in prison. The Royal Air Force was formed and had its first headquarters here in the former Hotel Cecil in 1918. During the 1920s, it was one of the most fashionable hotels in London and was filled with flappers and young men, representing the spirit of the Jazz Age. The hotel was largely demolished in 1930, and Shell Mex House now stands on its site.
*********SIT is the acronym for “safe in taxis” and NSIT is the acronym for “not safe in taxis”. These acronyms were used by debutantes and their mothers to refer to young men who could and couldn’t be trusted to escort a debutante home in a taxi without getting handsy. Some aristocratic mothers with daughters of a marriageable age being introduced into society kept a list of these young men and the debutantes themselves would avoid them.
**********The Bright Young Things, or Bright Young People, was a nickname given by the tabloid press to a group of Bohemian young aristocrats and socialites in 1920s London.
***********A Peter Pan collar is a style of clothing collar, flat in design with rounded corners. It is named after the collar of Maude Adams's costume in her 1905 role as Peter Pan, although similar styles had been worn before this date. Peter Pan collars were particularly fashionable during the 1920s and 1930s.
Contrary to popular belief, fashion at the beginning of the Roaring 20s did not feature the iconic cloche hat as a commonly worn head covering. Although invented by French milliner Caroline Reboux in 1908, the cloche hat did not start to gain popularity until 1922, so even though this story is set in that year, picture hats, a hangover from the pre-war years, were still de rigueur in fashionable society and whilst Lettice is fashionable, she and many other fashionable women still wore the more romantic picture hat. Although nowhere near as wide, heavy, voluminous or as ornate as the hats worn by women between the turn of the Twentieth Century and the Great War, the picture hats of the 1920s were still wide brimmed, although they were generally made of straw or some lightweight fabric and were decorated with a more restrained touch.
This pretty and very feminine Edwardian boudoir may appear like something out of a historical house display, but it is in fact part of my 1:12 miniatures collection and includes items from my childhood, as well as those I have collected as an adult.
Fun things to look for in this tableau include:
Lettice’s yellow straw hat decorated with ornamental flowers, fruit and organza. 1:12 size miniature hats made to such exacting standards of quality and realism such as these are often far more expensive than real hats are. When you think that it would sit comfortably on the tip of your index finger, yet it could cost in excess of $150.00 or £100.00, it is an extravagance. American artists seem to have the monopoly on this skill and some of the hats that I have seen or acquired over the years are remarkable. The maker of this hat is unknown, but it is part of a larger collection I bought from an American miniature collector Marilyn Bickel. Lettice’s lemon yellow purse is also an artisan piece and is made of kid leather which is so soft. It is trimmed with very fine braid and the purse has a clasp made from a piece of earring. The matching lemon yellow gloves are made from the same soft kid leather. They came as a set from Doreen Jeffries’ Small Wonders Miniatures in the United Kingdom.
The floral chintz chaise lounge with its scalloped end comes from Crooked Mile Cottage miniatures in America, whilst the dainty fringed footstool with its tiny rose and leaf pattern ribbon was hand upholstered by an artisan in England.
The silver dressing table set on the dressing table, consisting of mirror, brushes and a comb, as well as the tray on which the perfume bottle stand has been made by Warwick Miniatures in Ireland, who are well known for the quality and detail applied to their pieces.
On the silver tray there is a selection of sparkling perfume bottles, which are handmade by an English artisan for the Little Green Workshop. Made of cut coloured crystals set in a gilt metal frames or using vintage cut glass beads they look so elegant and terribly luxurious. The faceted pink glass perfume bottle, made from an Art Deco bead came with the dressing table, which I acquired from Kathleen Knight’s Doll House Shop.
The dressing table chair did not come with the dressing table, although it does match nicely. Upholstered in a very fine pink satin, it was made by the high-end dolls’ house miniature furniture manufacturer, Bespaq.
The plaster fireplace and its metal grate come from Kathleen Knight’s Doll House Shop in the United Kingdom. The fire pokers and bellows I have had since I was a teenager and come from a high street stockist who specialised in dolls houses and doll house miniatures.
The Chetwynd family photos seen cluttering the mantlepiece are all real photos, produced to high standards in 1:12 size on photographic paper by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire. The frames are almost all from Melody Jane’s Dollhouse Suppliers in the United Kingdom and are made of metal with glass in each.
The porcelain clock on the mantlepiece is made by M.W. Reutter Porzellanfabrik in Germany, who specialise in making high quality porcelain miniatures. The other vases in the room, except for the one containing the irises come from various online miniatures stockists.
Made of polymer clay that are moulded on wires to allow them to be shaped at will and put into individually formed floral arrangements, the very realistic looking blue irises are made by a 1:12 miniature specialist in Germany. The vase they stand in is a 1950s Limoges vase – one of a pair. Both are stamped with a small green Limoges mark to the bottom. These treasures I found in an overcrowded cabinet at the Mill Markets in Geelong. The pink roses on the dressing table and the cream roses on the round Regency occasional table come from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering.
The tall Dutch style chest of drawers to the far right of the photo was one of the first pieces of miniature furniture I ever bought for myself. I chose it as payment for several figures I made from Fimo clay for a local high street toy shop when I was eight years old. All these years later, I definitely think I got the better end of the deal!
The oriental rug is a copy of a popular 1920s style Chinese silk rug and has been machine woven. The wallpaper is an Eighteenth Century chinoiserie design of white camellias. All the paintings on Lettice’s boudoir walls come from Melody Jane’s Doll House Suppliers in the United Kingdom.
Cavendish Mews is a smart set of flats in Mayfair where flapper and modern woman, the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd has set up home after coming of age and gaining her allowance. To supplement her already generous allowance, and to break away from dependence upon her family, Lettice has established herself as a society interior designer, so her flat is decorated with a mixture of elegant antique Georgian pieces and modern Art Deco furnishings, using it as a showroom for what she can offer to her well heeled clients.
Tonight however we are at Glynes, the grand Georgian family seat of the Chetwynds in Wiltshire, and the home of Lettice’s parents, the presiding Viscount and Countess of Wrexham and the heir, their eldest son Leslie. Lettice is visiting her family home as her parents host their first Hunt Ball since 1914. Lady Sadie has been completely consumed over the last month by the planning and preparation of the occasion, determined that not only will it be the event of the 1922 county season, but also that it will be a successful entrée for her youngest daughter, still single at twenty-one years of age, to meet a number of eligible and marriageable men. Letters and invitations have flown from Lady Sadie’s bonheur de jour* to the families of eligible bachelors, some perhaps a little too old to be considered before the war, achieving more than modest success. Whilst Lettice enjoys dancing, parties and balls, she is less enthusiastic about the idea of the ball being used as a marriage market than her parents are.
We find ourselves in Lettice’s boudoir at Glynes, a room which she considers somewhat of a time capsule now with its old fashioned furnishings and mementoes of those halcyon pre-war summers. She hardly even considers it her room any more, so far removed is she from that giddy teenager who had crushes on her elder brothers’ friends and loved chintz covered furniture, floral wallpaper and sweet violet perfume. Lettice is sitting at her dressing table, a serpentine Edwardian piece of dark mahogany still adorned with the Art Nouveau silver dressing table set and perfume bottles she left behind along with her pre-war self when she moved to Mayfair in 1920. She sighs as she glances at her reflection in the mirror. Looking back is a beautiful, but rather pensive Cinderella in a pomaded wig bedecked in feathers, ropes of faux pearls and pale yellow roses that match the colour of the Eighteenth Century Georgian style ball gown of figured satin she wears. The Glynes Hunt Ball has always been a fancy dress, and whilst her father and Leslie usually eschew fancy dress in preference for their hunting pinks**, the Chetwynd women have always loved the occasion to get dressed up, and this year it is the world’s most famous and beloved faerie tale heroine whom Lettice is going as, an irony that makes her chuckle sadly to herself, when she considers that the ball is being held this year with the express purpose of her finding her prince charming.
“Not that there will be one there,” she says to herself, a snort of derision escaping her as she picks up one of the three faceted crystal bottles she has brought from her Cavendish Mews boudoir and places a few glistening drops of Shalimar*** on either side of her neck.
She looks across at the drawers of her travel de nécessaire**** and pulls one open and stares down at the glittering array of rings glinting in the lamplight, like fabulous chocolates made of gold and precious stones, nestled comfortably into their red velvet home. She looks down at the white kid elbow length gloves, an essential item for dancing so that no flesh actually comes into contact between a jeune fille à marier***** and an eligible bachelor lest the latter spoil the prospects of the former, and ponders which pieces she should wear. Her garnet and pearl Art Deco cluster cocktail ring perhaps? The baguette cut Emerald surrounded by brilliant cut diamonds? No, the daisy ring of brilliant cut diamonds that she was given as a birthday gift by her father on her twenty-first: that will go nicely against the white kid of her gloves.
“Oh!”
A gasp from the door to her bedroom breaks Lettices contemplation of her jewellery. Looking up she sees her mother reflected in the mirror’s glass. Turning around in her seat she lets her hand drape languidly over the back of her ornately carved dressing table chair with its pink satin seat.
“Mamma,” Lettice remarks. “I didn’t hear you come in.”
Dressed as the national personification of Britain, Lady Sadie is every inch the helmeted female warrior Britannia, only her battle lies in manoeuvring her reluctant and recalcitrant daughter about the Glynes ballroom rather than defending the realm. Standing in a white Roman style shift with gold embroidery of a key pattern along the hem, sleeves and neck, she has a brass helmet decorated with thick red plumes atop her proudly held head. There is a steely determination in both the line of her clenched jaw and her glittering eyes, yet there is also a hint of approval as she takes in her daughter’s very feminine appearance.
“I just wanted to see you before the ball commences, Lettice.” Lady Sadie says brittlely as she glides elegantly across the floor, her gown like a muslin cloud billowing about her serene figure. She sighs as she gazes around the bedroom. “I do wish you’d return home Lettice, rather than living in that dreadful place, London. It isn’t right you know, for a young unmarried girl to be living on her own in London. You’d be much better to stay here and learn how to run a real home to ready yourself for when you are chatelaine…”
“You said you wanted to see me, Mamma?” Lettice cuts her mother off sharply, not even countenancing moving back to live beneath her mother’s disapproving gaze. “About the ball, was it?”
Lady Sadie’s serenity is shattered by her daughter’s curt interruption and her face resumes its usual scowl when addressing her daughter. “Yes. Yes it was, Lettice.”
“Well, best you tell me then,” the younger woman replies, half turning back to her dressing table, and glancing over her right shoulder to the pretty porcelain clock decorated with entwined roses on the mantlepiece. “The first guests will be arriving shortly.”
“Very well Lettice, if you wish to play it this way,” Sadie’s frown becomes more pronounced as she sighs. She looks at the impatient form of her youngest daughter, whom she considers to be her most problematic child by far. “I want no difficulties from you this evening.”
“Difficulties!” Lettice releases a burst of laughter. “Me?”
“Don’t be coy!” Lady Sadie snaps. “It’s most unbecoming.”
“You always said that coyness was an alluring charm.” Lettice remarks sweetly in return, knowing that this will goad her mother, but unable to resist the temptation to do so.
“It is, except when you are in a conversation with your mother.” Lady Sadie barks back, her response rewarded by a cheeky half smile from her daughter who doesn’t even attempt to hide her amusement. “Now, I don’t have time for your silly games, my girl. I expect you to stand next to me to greet our guests when they start to arrive. You will be polite and acknowledge each one, even if you don’t particularly care for their company.”
“Of course Mamma,” Lettice replies demurely.
“And I don’t want any sly remarks from you.” The older woman wags her heavily bejewelled fingers warningly. “You are on show this evening, and I expect nothing less than ladylike decorum in all manner of action and speech.”
“Yes Mamma,” Lettice sighs.
“Gerald Bruton and his acerbic tongue have been a bad influence on you since you both moved to London and started spending more time together.” Lady Sadie quips. “Oh, and whilst we are on the subject of Gerald, I don’t want you spending all evening with him, ensconced in a corner, gossiping, and deriding our guests. Do you understand?”
“Well, I can hardly ignore him, Mamma, if he engages me in conversation. You said yourself just now that I am to be ladylike in all manner of action and speech.”
“You know what I mean, Lettice! Are you being obtuse on purpose, just to annoy me?”
“No, Mamma!” Lettice raises her hands in defence of her words. “Mind you, Gerald is an eligible young bachelor too.”
“And you know he is totally unsuitable.” retorts Lady Sadie. “He’s the second son for a start, and the Brutons are in rather straitened circumstances, in case you don’t know. Lord Bruton is selling off another few parcels of land along his western boundary to help pay for the upkeep required on Bruton Hall.”
“I didn’t know that!” Lettice remarks, genuinely surprised as her hand goes to her throat.
“Yes, your father told me he heard as much from Lord Bruton on New Year’s Eve. He is selling parcels of land there because he hopes for a better price from a developer, being the closest point to Glynes village and the main road.” Lady Sadie admits. Scrutinising her daughter through sharp and slightly squinting eyes she adds, “I can trust your discretion, can’t I Lettice?”
“Of course, Mamma!” she replies genuinely. “Does Aunt Gwen know?”
“I haven’t asked her, and I’m not going to cause either of them embarrassment by raising it, but I’ll assume yes. She must have some idea. I’m just grateful that tonight is a fancy dress. It will save poor Gwyneth from having to wear that same tired, old fashioned frock she wore here on New Year’s Eve tonight.”
“Yes, I noticed that too.”
“Anyway, hopefully you’ll be too busy dancing on the arm of an eligible bachelor to spend any time with Gerald. Besides, he should be focusing on finding himself a suitable heiress, although coming from such an unremarkable family with limited means, he’s not exactly the most exciting prospect, in spite of his handsome looks.”
Lettice doesn’t reply, remembering her father’s words in the Glynes library late the previous year when he mentioned that Lady Sadie was quite unaware of Gerald’s inclinations. To avoid embarrassment on either of their parts, and to keep Gerald in at least the lower echelons of her mother’s good graces, she decides that discretion is the better part of valour and keeps quiet, which luckily Lady Sadie takes as docility from her daughter.
“Now, do you remember whom you are to dance with this evening, Lettice?”
“Yes Mamma,” Lettice sighs, unable to stop herself from rolling her eyes as she begins to recite. “Jonty Hastings, Selwyn Spencely, Edward Lambley, Septimius Faversham, Bryce MacTavish, Oliver Edgars, Piers Hackford-Jones, Tarquin Howard.” She cringes inwardly. “and Nicholas Ayers.”
“Don’t forget Sir John Nettleford-Hughes!” Lady Sadie reminds her daughter.
“Ugh!” Lettice’s nose screws up in disgust. “I’m not dancing with Sir John! He’s… he’s so old and lecherous!”
“Nonsense Lettice! Sir John may be a little bit older than the other gentlemen on offer, but he is no less eligible. You could do worse than present yourself, as I hope you will, as a jeune fille à marier to him. He has a beautiful estate in Buckinghamshire and houses in Bedfordshire, London and not to mention Fontengil Park just a stone’s throw south of here in our very own Wiltshire.”
“Mamma, he likes young chorus girls!”
Lady Sadie stiffens at the mention of such women in her presence. “Oh, that’s just idle drawing room gossip, Lettice!”
“It’s not! It’s true.” She folds her arms akimbo and pouts. “He’s a lecherous old man who likes young girls who don’t wear knickers!”
“Lettice!” Lady Sadie grasps at her throat in horror. “Don’t say such scandalous things! Every unmarred man who went through the war had an infatuation with a Gaiety Girl at some stage.”
“It’s more than an infatuation or phase with him, Mamma! I’ll not dance with such an old man! I won’t!”
“You will my girl, because it is your duty.”
Lettice sighs and goes to say something as a retort, but her mother’s bejewelled fingers rise again, the diamonds winking from their gold and platinum settings.
“I told you. I want no trouble from you tonight. This ball is for you. It may be the Hunt Ball, but we all know it’s for you to meet a potential husband. It’s your duty to dance at least once with every eligible man I have invited here this evening for you to pick from. So, dance with him you will. And let that be an end to your obstinance, Lettice.”
Realising suddenly that if she wants this evening to be as painless as possible, she really must do as her father suggests and make an effort to try and please her mother, even if the idea of a husband finding ball appals her, Lettice sighs and acquiesces with a nod. “Very well Mamma.”
“That’s a good girl.” Lady Sadie replies with a pleased purr in her voice.
The older woman turns to walk away and then gasps, spinning back to her daughter.
“I almost forgot why I came here to see you, Lettice.”
“I thought it was to talk about who I was to dance with, Mamma.”
“Well, there was that too, but no. I wanted to give you this to wear for the evening.” The older woman fishes into the capacious flowing sleeve of her white muslin shift and withdraws a sparkling necklace of brilliant cut diamonds and rubies set in platinum, which she passes to her daughter.
Lettice gasps. “The Glynes necklace!” She takes the fabulous jewellery confection in her warm hands, feeling the coolness of the stones and metal against her palms and fingers as she admires the sixteen enormous diamonds and four equally large rubies in their settings. “But this is…”
Once again, Lady Sadie’s hands rise, indicating for Lettice to desist from speaking.
“I know that you and I seldom see eye-to-eye on anything, Lettice, and I doubt we ever will,” the older woman says crisply. “And that includes the ball tonight. Yet you have shown the good grace to make an effort to come and have chosen a beautiful costume. I hope that good grace will extend to your behaviour this evening. I know you don’t agree with you father’s or my idea that you could meet your potential future husband here tonight, but there we agree to disagree. If you would just allow yourself to enjoy the spectacle of the evening and join in the spirit that this is for you, you might find a man to whom you can entrust your heart. I know that this necklace is the property of the chatelaine of Glynes, and therefore usually worn by her, however I thought because of your good grace, and your concerted efforts,” Her eyebrows arch slightly as she sizes up her daughter again, looking for any hidden pockets of rebellion beneath the elegantly costumed girl. “Having the opportunity to wear this necklace this evening would help you enjoy the occasion.”
Lettice stares down at the winking jewels in her hands. “I don’t know what to say, Mamma.”
“A thank you would be customary, and quite acceptable, Lettice.”
“Thank you Mamma.”
*A bonheur de jour is a type of lady's writing desk. It was introduced in Paris by one of the interior decorators and purveyors of fashionable novelties called marchands-merciers around 1760, and speedily became intensely fashionable. Decorated on all sides, it was designed to sit in the middle of a room so that it could be admired from any angle.
**Hunting pinks is the name given to the traditional scarlet jacket and related attire worn by fox-hunters.
***Shalimar perfume was created when Jacques Guerlain poured a bottle of ethylvanillin into a bottle of Jicky, a fragrance created by Guerlain in 1889. Raymond Guerlain designed the bottle for Shalimar, which was modelled after the basins of eastern gardens and Mongolian stupa art.
****A travel de nécessaire is a travelling case used in the Edwardian era for country weekend house parties and holidays away from home. They would usually contain items like combs, brushes and perfume bottles needed for maintaining one’s appearance, but could be much grander and contain many other implements including pens and ink bottles, manicure sets and more. There were also some specifically designed for the use of jewellery, with velvet lined compartments for rings, neckaces, brooches and earrings.
*****A jeune fille à marier was a marriageable young woman, the French term used in fashionable circles and the upper-classes of Edwardian society before the Second World War.
This pretty corner of an Edwardian boudoir may appear like something out of a historical house display, but it is in fact part of my 1:12 miniatures collection and includes items from my childhood, as well as those I have collected as an adult.
Fun things to look for in this tableau include:
The silver dressing table set on the dressing table, consisting of mirror, brushes and a comb, as well as the tray on which the perfume bottle stand has been made by Warwick Miniatures in Ireland, who are well known for the quality and detail applied to their pieces.
On the silver tray there is a selection of sparkling perfume bottles, which are handmade by an English artisan for the Little Green Workshop. Made of cut coloured crystals set in a gilt metal frames or using vintage cut glass beads they look so elegant and terribly luxurious. The faceted pink glass perfume bottle, made from an Art Deco bead came with the dressing table, which I acquired from Kathleen Knight’s Doll House Shop.
Also on the tray is a container of Val-U-Time talcum powder: an essential item for any Edwardian lady, and a metal container of Madame Pivette’s Complexion Beautifier, which was introduced in 1905 by Doctor J.B. Lynas and Son and produced in Logansport, Indiana. Doctor Lynas started his own profession in 1866, which was the making of "family remedies", which quickly gained popularity. It became so popular, that he sold extensively throughout the United States. His products carried names such as the Catarrh Remedy, Hoosier Cough Syrup, Ready Relief, Rheumatic Liniment, White Mountain Salve, Egyptian Salve and Liver Pills. Within a few years the "doctor's" medicine sales amounted to around ten thousand US dollars per year. By the turn of the Twentieth Century he had expanded his product line to include flavorings such as vanilla, cherry, lemon; and also, soaps, lotions and perfumes for ladies. These items were made by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire.
The travel de necessaire, complete with miniature jewellery, I acquired from Melody Jane’s Doll House Suppliers in the United Kingdom.
The dressing table chair did not come with the dressing table, although it does match nicely. Upholstered in a very fine pink satin, it was made by the high-end dolls’ house miniature furniture manufacturer, Bespaq.
The elbow length white evening gloves on the seat of the chair are artisan pieces made of kid leather. I acquired these from a high street dolls house specialist when I was a teenager. Amazingly, they have never been lost in any of the moves that they have made over the years are still pristinely clean.
16/30 Blythe A Day
K is for Keepsakes - my father-in-law brought these exquisite tea pots back from Malaysia, they belonged to his mother, & after she passed he thought I would like to keep them safe for the next generation of Nyau's.
Wickham Place is the London home of Lord and Lady Southgate, their children and staff. Located in fashionable Belgravia it is a fine Georgian terrace house.
Today we are in Lady Southgate’s dressing room, which is adjunct to her bedroom. It’s a quarter to midnight and poor Newman, Lady Southgate’s Lady’s Maid, has just seen her mistress to bed after Lord and Lady Southgate returned from an evening at Covent Garden. Yet her work is not done. She has her mistress’ clothes to clean and put away in the wardrobes, and her dressing table to tidy up.
Lady Southgate’s dressing room is situated on the third floor of Wickham Place. It is light and airy with an east facing window, so it gets the morning sun whilst Newman sets her mistress’ hair each day, and Lady Southgate applies beauty products to maintain her creamy complexion. The dressing room is a feminine preserve and its décor reflects that along with the current fashion for whites and pastel colours in boudoirs. The wallpaper is a fashionable Edwardian pattern of birds, butterflies and pink camellias on a pale green background. Feminine Rococo paintings hang on the walls in antique gilt frames. The room contains light coloured furniture including wardrobes full of her ladyship’s clothes, full length mirrors, a cream upholstered settee, several occasional tables, a Japanese floral painted screen, a Chippendale style salon chair upholstered in cream satin and a walnut Regency dressing table: a gift to Lady Southbank from her husband.
This year the FFF+ Group have decided to have a monthly challenge called “Freestyle On The Fifth”. A different theme chosen by a member of the group each month, and the image is to be posted on the 5th of the month.
This month the theme, “beauty” was chosen by Andrew ()
Lady Southgate’s Regency dressing table covered in her beauty aides, perfume bottles and her glittering travelling beauty case seemed the perfect choice for the theme. However, this upper-class boudoir scene is different, for it is made up entirely of 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures. Some pieces come from my own childhood including the Regency dressing table, the gilt hairbrush and mirror which I was given as part of my Christmas presents when I was around ten. Other items in this tableau I acquired as a teenager and as an adult through specialist doll shops, online dealers and artists who specialise in making 1:12 miniatures.
Fun things to look for in this tableaux include:
On the right-hand side of her dressing table is Lady Southgate’s glittering travel de necessaire (travelling case), which is hinged, has an inlaid top and is lined with red velvet. It contains an array of beauty aides any Edwardian woman, or her lady’s maid, would have used including curling tongs (which look like scissors), various perfume bottles, pill boxes and cosmetic jars and a shoe horn as well as a sizable mirror. Draped over its edge is a sparking “diamond” necklace made of tiny strung faceted silver beads. There is also a selection of sparkling perfume bottles next to the travel de necessaire which are hand-made by an English artisan, made of cut coloured crystals set in a gilt metal frame. In front of the travel de necessaire is a gilt hairbrush and looking glass.
In the dressing table well beneath the recessed mirror is a container of Val-U-Time talcum powder: an essential item for any Edwardian lady, a box containing Dionnetta skin whitening powder and several more perfume bottles.
On the left-hand side of the dressing table is a brass dish containing white wax, which was commonly used in Edwardian times to massage into the skin. There is also a metal container of Madame Pivette’s Complexion Beautifier, which was introduced in 1905 by Doctor J.B. Lynas and Son and produced in Logansport, Indiana. Doctor Lynas started his own profession in 1866, which was the making of "family remedies", which quickly gained popularity. It became so popular, that he sold extensively throughout the United States. His products carried names such as the Catarrh Remedy, Hoosier Cough Syrup, Ready Relief, Rheumatic Liniment, White Mountain Salve, Egyptian Salve and Liver Pills. Within a few years the "doctor's" medicine sales amounted to around ten thousand US dollars per year. By the turn of the Twentieth Century he had expanded his product line to include flavorings such as vanilla, cherry, lemon; and also, soaps, lotions and perfumes for ladies.
On the occasional table stands a 1950s Limoges vase filled with pink hydrangeas. The vase is stamped with a small green Limoges mark to the bottom. This treasure I found in an overcrowded cabinet at the Mill Markets in Geelong.
At the bottom of the pile on the occasional table next to the vase are two copies of The Delineator. The Delineator was an American women's magazine of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, founded by the Butterick Publishing Company in 1869 under the name The Metropolitan Monthly. Its name was changed in 1875. The magazine was published on a monthly basis in New York City.
On top of The Delineator magazines are two corset boxes: a Baleinine corset from Paris and a Warner Brothers Coraline Health Corset from New York. The corset was an essential beauty aide for any Victorian or Edwardian woman. It was only with the invention of the Flapper in the 1920s, that corsets fell out of fashion. In the late Nineteenth Century, Dr. Lucien Warner, a prominent American physician gave up his practice to begin a new career on the medical lecturing circuit, specializing in women’s health issues. Dr. Warner lectured about the effects of the corset. After seeing how little influence his lectures had on women’s attitudes, he returned to his New York home and began a different approach to fighting the ills caused by the corset. In 1873, he designed a corset that provided both the shape desired by women and the flexibility required to allow some movement and reduce injuries caused by previous designs. The next year, Lucien Warner and his brother Dr. Ira De Ver Warner gave up their medical practices and founded Warner Brothers Corset Manufacturers. Dr. Warner’s Coraline Health Corsets were made up of two pieces of cloth which were laced or clasped together. These revolutionary undergarments also featured shoulder straps and more flexible boning and lateral bust supports made of Coraline, a product of the fibers of the Mexican Ixtle plant. The success of the Warners’ designs had made the brothers millionaires and in 1894 they retired and turned control of the company over to De Ver’s son and the Warner Brothers partnership was changed to a corporation. Warner's business was still doing well under the management of Dr.De Var's son. He even added new types of corsets: a rust proof corset, a combination corset, and even a hose supporter. In 1913 the company made seven million US Dollars in sales. Then in 1913 Warner Brother's bought the patent for the brassier from Mary Phelps Jacobs, and they ended up making twelve point six million US Dollars by 1920.
Behind the dressing table is a Chinese screen dating from the 1930s featuring hand-painted soapstone panels of flowers. It is framed lacquered wood and is remarkably heavy for its size. The reverse features Chinese scenes with mountains and pagodas.
Cavendish Mews is a smart set of flats in Mayfair where flapper and modern woman, the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd has set up home after coming of age and gaining her allowance. To supplement her already generous allowance, and to break away from dependence upon her family, Lettice has established herself as a society interior designer, so her flat is decorated with a mixture of elegant antique Georgian pieces and modern Art Deco furnishings, using it as a showroom for what she can offer to her well heeled clients.
Two of Lettice’s Embassy Club coterie of bright young things are getting married: Dickie Channon, eldest surviving son of the Marquess of Taunton, and Margot de Virre, only daughter of Lord Charles and Lady Lucie de Virre. Lettice is hosting an exclusive buffet supper party in their honour this evening, which is turning out to be one of the events of the 1921 London Season. Over the last few days, Lettice’s flat has been in upheaval as Edith, Lettice’s maid, and Lettice’s charwoman* Mrs. Boothby have been cleaning the flat thoroughly in preparation for the occasion. Earlier today with the help of a few hired men they moved some of the furnishings in Lettice’s drawing room into the spare bedroom to make space for a hired dance band and for the guests to dance and mingle. Edith’s preserve of the kitchen has been overrun by delivery men, florists and caterers. Throughout all of this upheaval, Lettice has fled to Margot’s parents’ house in Hans Crescent in nearby Belgravia, only returning just as a red and white striped marquee is erected by Gunter and Company** over the entrance and the pavement outside.
Now we find ourselves in Lettice’s dressing room where she and Margot sit at Lettice’s Regency dressing table making last minute adjustments and choices to their eveningwear. The surface of the dressing table is littered with jewellery and perfume bottles as the two excited girls chat, whilst Margot’s fiancée, Dickie, whips up the latest cocktails for them at the makeshift bar on Lettice’s dining table down the hall in the flat’s dining room.
“Oh Lettice, I’m so nervous!” Margot confides, clasping her friend’s hands.
“Good heavens why, darling?” Lettice looks across at her friend in concern as she feels the tremble in her dainty fingers wrapped around her own. She notices her pale face. “You aren’t having second thoughts, are you?”
“About the party?”
“About Dickie!”
“Goodness no, darling!” Margot clutches her bare throat with her hand, the diamonds in her engagement ring winking brightly. “About him I have never been so sure. He’s always been the one for me, darling. You of all people should know that!”
“Then what, Margot darling?”
“Well, this party!”
“What on earth do you mean? Its going to be a thrilling bash.” Lettice soothes. “I’ve hired this divine little jazz quartet to play dance music for us. All our friends are on the guest list, and they are all coming. It will be just like being at the Embassy Club, only it will be here instead.” She waves her arms generously around her. “What’s to be nervous about?”
“Oh, it just all seems so formal.”
“Formal?”
“Yes,” Margot goes on. “So grown up. I mean it’s one thing to see your names printed together in the papers, yet it’s quite another to have a party thrown in honour of your engagement as you step out into society as an engaged couple. I’m not used to being the centre of attention.”
“Well, you’ll have to get used to it, at least for a little while.” Lettice smiles as she hangs a necklace of sparkling diamonds from her jewellery casket about her neck, allowing them to cascade down the front of her powder blue silk georgette gown designed and made for her by Gerald. She sighs with satisfaction at the effect before addressing Margot again. “Think of this as a rehearsal for your wedding day.”
Margot gulps.
“Only tonight,” Lettice continues wagging a finger in the air. “You can drink as much as you like.”
The pair are interrupted by a loud knocking on the door before it suddenly opens, and Dickie pokes his head around it. The sound of the jazz band tuning up in Lettice’s drawing room pours into the room.
“Get out!” Lettice cries, jumping up from her seat and flapping her hands at Dickie. “You aren’t supposed to see the bride yet! It’s bad luck!”
“That’s on the wedding day you silly goose!” Dickie laughs.
“Don’t bother us now, Dickie,” Lettice continues, leaning against the doorframe and then glancing at Margot’s anxious face reflected in the looking glass of her dressing table. “We’re fixing something.”
“Oh, secret women’s business, is it?” he whispers conspiratorially with a cheeky smile.
“Something like that,” Lettice says breezily. “Margot just has a case of centre stage jitters.”
Dickie face clouds over. He frowns in concern and presses on the door.
“She’ll be fine.” Lettice assures him, pressing hard against the pressure she can feel from his side of the door. “I just need a few more minutes with her. Alright darling?”
“Well,” Dickie says a little doubtfully. “Only if you’re sure. But don’t be too long.” He glances at Lettice’s pretty green onyx Art Deco clock on her dressing table. “The guests will be arriving shortly.”
“We won’t be, Dickie.” she assures him as she presses a little more forcefully on the door.
“Well,” he remarks brightly in an effort to settle his fiancée’s nerves. “I’d only come down here to see if you two ladies fancied a special Dickie Channon pre-cocktail party cocktail?”
“Oh yes!” Lettice enthuses. “That sounds divine, darling! I’ll have a Dubonnet and gin. What will you have Margot, darling?”
“I’ll have a Bee’s Knees, thank you Dickie.” she replies with a less than enthusiastic lilt to her quiet voice.
The furrows on Dickie’s brow deepen as he glances between Margot and Lettice. Lettice raises a finger to silence the concerns he is about to express about Margot, and then she points back down the hallway to the dining room. Dickie’s mouth screws up in concern, and he shakes his head slightly as he withdraws.
“See you in a few minutes,” Lettice assures his retreating figure.
“He’s cross, isn’t he?” Margot asks as Lettice closes the door again.
“No, he’s just concerned is all,” she replies as she resumes her seat. “As am I.”
Margot’s stance of slumped shoulders displays her deflated feeling as much as the look in her dark eyes as she glances up at her friend.
“Look. How do you ever expect to be the Marchioness of Taunton one day, standing at the end of a long presentation line for a ball that you are hosting, if you can’t greet a few guests now?”
“I never wanted to be the future Marchioness of Taunton, just Mrs. Dickie Channon.”
“Well,” Lettice places a consoling hand on the bare shoulder of her friend. “The two come hand-in-hand, Margot darling, so you have to accept it, come what may.”
Lettice suddenly thinks of something and starts fossicking around in the drawers of her dressing table. She pulls open the right-hand drawer and pulls out some lemon yellow kid gloves and a pretty white bead necklace which sparkles in the light as she lays it on the dressing table top.
“What on earth are you doing, darling?” Margot asks Lettice.
Dropping a bright blue bead necklace on the surface of the dressing table next, Lettice makes a disgruntled noise and then reaches for the brass drawer pull of the left-hand drawer.
“I’m going to share something with you Margot. Something very special. I wasn’t going to, because it’s mine, and no-one else we know has it. However, it may give you the confidence you need for tonight to have something beautiful that nobody else does.”
She drags open the left hand drawer. Its runners protest loudly with a squeaking groan. Beads and chains spew forth as she does, spilling over the edge of the drawer.
“Ahh! Here it is!” Lettice cries triumphantly.
She withdraws a small eau-de-nil box with black writing on it. Opening it she takes out a stylish bevelled green glass Art Deco bottle which she places on the surface of her dressing table amidst pieces of her jewellery.
“What is it?” Margot looks on intrigued, a bemused smile playing upon her lips.
“I picked this up when I was last in Paris. I visited a little maison de couture on the rue Cambon. It was owned and run by a remarkable woman named Coco Chanel. She used to own a small boutique in Deauville and her clothes are remarkably simple and stylish. It’s simply called Chanel Number 5.***”
Margot picks up the scent bottle in both her elegant hands with undisguised reverence.
“Like her clothes, and even the perfume’s name, it is simple, yet unique. I’ve never smelt anything quite like it.”
“Oh its divine!” Margot enthuses as she removes the stopper and inhales deeply. ‘Like champagne and jasmine!”
“She wasn’t going to sell it to me as she only had the bottle on the counter for her own use, but I begged her after smelling it. No-one else at the party will be wearing this, so why don’t you Margot?”
“Really Lettice?”
“Yes,” Lettice smiles. “I’ll wear something else. It will be your scent of confidence for this evening.”
“Oh thank you darling.” Margot replies humbly. “This scent makes me feel better already.”
“Good!” Lettice sighs happily. “Then dab it on and let’s go. The first guests will be here soon, and it will be bad form not to be ready to greet them.”
“You’re right Lettice!” Margot agrees, sounding cheerier and more confident.
“Besides, Dickie will have made those cocktails for us now.”
Margot dabs her neck and wrists with scent from the Chanel Number 5. bottle with the round glass stopper whilst Lettice applies some Habanita****. The two gaze at themselves in Lettice’s looking glass, giving themselves a final check. Lettice with her blonde finger waved chignon and pale blue gown looks the opposite to Margot with her dark waves and silver gown, yet both look beautiful. Suitably satisfied with their appearances, they step away from the dressing table, walk out of Lettice’s dressing room and walk down the hallway to join Dickie who offers them both their cocktail of choice.
*A charwoman, chargirl, or char, jokingly charlady, is an old-fashioned occupational term, referring to a paid part-time worker who comes into a house or other building to clean it for a few hours of a day or week, as opposed to a maid, who usually lives as part of the household within the structure of domestic service. In the 1920s, chars usually did all the hard graft work that paid live-in domestics would no longer do as they looked for excuses to leave domestic service for better paying work in offices and factories.
**Gunter and Company were London caterers and ball furnishers with shops in Berkley Square, Sloane Street, Lowndes Street and New Bond Street. They began as Gunter’s Tea Shop at 7 and 8 Berley Square 1757 where it remained until 1956 as the business grew and opened different premises. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries Gunter's became a fashionable light eatery in Mayfair, notable for its ices and sorbets. Gunter's was considered to be the wedding cake makers du jour and in 1889, made the bride cake for the marriage of Queen Victoria’s granddaughter, Princess Louise of Wales. Even after the tea shop finally closed, the catering business carried on until the mid 1970s.
***Chanel Number 5. was launched in 1921. Coco Chanel wanted to launch a scent for the new, modern woman she embodied. She loved the scent of soap and freshly-scrubbed skin; Chanel’s mother was a laundrywoman and market stall-holder, though when she died, the young Gabrielle was sent to live with Cistercian nuns at Aubazine. When it came to creating her signature scent, though, freshness was all-important. While holidaying with her lover, Grand Duke Dimitri Pavlovich, she heard tell of a Grasse-based perfumer called Ernest Beaux, who’d been the perfumer darling of the Russian royal family. Over several months, he produced a series of 10 samples to show to ‘Mademoiselle’. They were numbered one to five, and 20 to 24. She picked No. 5
****Molinard Habanita was launched in 1921. Molinard say that Habanita was the first women’s fragrance to strongly feature vetiver as an ingredient – something hitherto reserved for men, commenting that ‘Habanita’s innovative style was eagerly embraced by the garçonnes – France’s flappers – and soon became Molinard’s runaway success and an icon in the history of French perfume.’ Originaly conceived as a scent for cigarettes – inserted via glass rods or to sprinkle from a sachet – women had begun sprinkling themselves with it instead, and Molinard eventually released it as a personal fragrance.
This rather beautiful, if slightly messy boudoir scene may be a little different to what you might think, for it is made up entirely of 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures from my collection. Some pieces in this scene come from my own childhood, whilst other items in this tableau I acquired as a teenager and as an adult through specialist doll shops, online dealers and artists who specialise in making 1:12 miniatures.
Fun things to look for in this tableau include:
Central to this story is the bottle of Chanel Number 5. which stands on the dressing table. It is made of very thinly cut green glass. It, and its accompanying box peeping out of the drawer were made by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire.
Lettice’s Regency dressing table was given to me as part of a Christmas present when I was around ten years old. Made of walnut, it features a real bevelled mirror, a central well for makeup, two working drawers and a faux marble column down each side below the drawers.
The same Christmas I was given the Regency dressing table, I was also given a three piece gilt pewter dressing table set consisting of comb, hairbrush and hand mirror, the latter featuring a real piece of mirror set into it. Like the dressing table, these small pieces have survived the tests of time and survived without being lost, even though they are tiny.
Even smaller than the gilt dressing table set pieces are the tiny pieces of jewellery on the left-hand side of the dressing table. Amongst the smallest pieces I have in my collection, the gold bangle, pearl and gold brooch and gold and amethyst brooch, along with the ‘diamond’ necklace behind the Chanel perfume bottle, the purple bead necklace hanging from the left-hand drawer and the blue bead necklace to the right of the dressing table’s well, I acquired as part of an artisan jewellery box from a specialist doll house supplier when I was a teenager. Amazingly, they too have not become lost over the passing years since I bought them.
Lettice’s Art Deco beaded jewellery casket on the left-hand side of the picture is a handmade artisan piece. All the peary pale blue beads are individually attached and the casket has a black velvet lining. It was made by Pat’s World of Miniatures in the United Kingdom.
To the right of Lettice’s jewellery casket is an ornamental green jar filled with hatpins. The jar is made from a single large glass Art Deco bead, whilst each hatpin is made from either a nickel or brass plate pin with beads for ornamental heads. They were made by Karen Lady Bug Miniatures in the United Kingdom.
There is a selection of sparkling perfume bottles on Lettice’s dressing table and in its well which are handmade by an English artisan for the Little Green Workshop. Made of cut coloured crystals set in a gilt metal frames or using vintage cut glass beads they look so elegant and terribly luxurious.
The container of Snowfire Cold Cream standing next to the Chanel perfume bottle was supplied by Shepherd’s Miniatures in the United Kingdom. Exactly like its life size counterpart, it features a very Art Deco design on its lid with geometric patterns in traditionally popular colours of the 1920s with the silhouette of a woman at the top. It is only nine millimetres in diameter and three millimetres in depth. Snowfire was a brand created by F.W. Hampshire and Company, who had a works in Sinfin Lane in Derby. The firm manufactured Snowfire ointment, Zubes (cough sweets) ice cream powder, wafers and cornets; Jubes (fruit sweets covered in sugar). Later it made ointment (for burns) and sweetening tablets. The company was eventually merged with Reckitt Toiletry Products in the 1960s.
Lettice’s little green Art Deco boudoir clock is a 1:12 artisan miniature made by Hall’s Miniature Clocks, supplied through Doreen Jeffries Small Wonders Miniatures in England. Made of resin with a green onyx marble effect, it has been gilded by hand and contains a beautifully detailed face beneath a miniature glass cover.
Also from Doreen Jeffries’ Small Wonders Miniatures in the United Kingdom are the pale yellow gloves sticking out of the right-hand drawer. Artisan pieces, they are made of kid leather with a fine white braid trim and are so light and soft.
The 1920s beaded headdress standing on the wooden hatstand was made by Mrs. Denton of Muffin Lodge in the United Kingdom. You might just notice that it has a single feather aigrette sticking out of it on the right-hand side, held in place by a faceted sequin.
The painting you can see hanging in the wall is an artisan miniature of an Elizabethan woman in a gilt frame, made my Marie Makes Miniatures.
The geometric Art Deco wallpaper is beautiful hand impressed paper given to me by a friend, which inspired the whole “Cavendish Mews – Lettice Chetwynd” series.
This powder box featuring an Edwardian beauty comes from around 1910 to 1912. She is French and is made of gold with a lip of dark green enamel. The image of the unknown beauty was done by taking a lithograph of a photograph of the lady, painting it my hand, and cutting it to allow the colours of slivers of mother of pearl and iridescent butterfly wings to blend into the photograph. The image was then placed beneath a convex piece of glass to protect it. The protected image was then inserted into a 15 carat gold frame and backed by a bevelled mirror on the inside. She came with her original powder puff which features a little pink and white candy stripe ribbon. She is only one and a half inches in diameter.
(Private collection.)
This year the FFF+ Group have decided to have a monthly challenge called “Freestyle On The Fifth”. A different theme chosen by a member of the group each month, and the image is to be posted on the 5th of the month.
This month the theme, “beauty” was chosen by Andrew (ajhaysom).
I wanted to choose this powder box because she represents beauty in several ways: the powder box itself is an item of beauty, the woman on the top is the epitome of an Edwardian Beauty from before the Great War, and the box’s purpose was to hold powder for an Edwardian lady to dust her face with, to aide her beauty.
I hung a strand of old chandelier crystals over the top of the mirror. The bride doll on the left was my mother's.