Evening gown, Liberty (London), c1880. Photo: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Behind the fifteenth window of my pretend flouncy advent calendar there lurks this fabulous saffron yellow evening gown by Liberty, which dates from the early 1880s and brings to mind the intricately draped garments worn by women in Ancient Greece and Rome.
Liberty, of course, was the favorite shop of the more bohemian fashionable ladies of Victorian London with such luminaries as the beautiful Constance Wilde, wife of Oscar, being regularly spotted out and about in their beautifully cut and strikingly hued dresses.
I picked this dress today because I fancied something with a boho 1880s flavor due to it being the birthday of both my mother and our mutual relation Clara Lee, who was the inspiration for Cora in my upcoming Jack the Ripper novel and who was born on this day in 1865. Happy birthday to them both!
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