Woman's Dress from Liberty

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Subject

Clothing and Dress

Title

Woman's Dress from Liberty

Date

1922

Description

This peacock blue dress is from the Liberty department store in London, England. Arthur Lasenby Liberty (1843-1917) began his career in fashion at Farmer and Roger’s, a firm selling cloaks and shawls imported from China and India. The 1862 Great London Exhibition, held in South Kensington, London opened during Liberty’s first year of work there. This international fair included displays from around the world, including one from Japan, showcasing textiles, clothing, and machinery used in textile production. The decorative arts firm Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. exhibited the designs of William Morris, one of the founders of the British Arts and Crafts Movement, with whom Liberty was to become friends. The fair sparked increased interest in Asian textiles, so Farmer and Roger’s added the words “Oriental Warehouse” to their name, and soon promoted Liberty to become a manager.

Liberty received a loan of ₤2,000 from his future father-in-law, Henry Blackmore, prior to his marriage to Emma Louise Blackmore in 1875. With this money, approximately $214,000 in today’s dollars, Liberty opened a store on Regent Street, offering goods and fabrics from faraway places. The shop would move to its current address on Great Marlborough Street in 1924, after Liberty’s death.

Liberty saw opportunity not only in providing exotic textiles but in branching out into furniture, dressmaking, and more. The softly-draping silks, velvets, and cashmere were made for the flowing Aesthetic-style clothing. Peacock feathers, a symbol of wealth and beauty in many eastern cultures, had become a much-used motif of the Aesthetic Movement. Arthur Silver designed the first peacock fabric for Liberty around 1887; known as Hera for the Greek goddess, it is still produced today and the peacock feather remains a symbol of the Liberty brand.

The general public became more familiar with imported Oriental designs and goods due to England’s increased contact with these cultures during the second half of the 19th century. Businessman Sir Thomas Wardle, who often collaborated with William Morris, worked to improve silk production and dyeing techniques in England as well as India and imported quantities of silks from India and the Middle East. Liberty’s shop in Regent Street specialized in Eastern goods, supplying a ready market for all beginning in the 1870s. “The Aesthetic movement and the Arts and Crafts movement were steered partly by Liberty. And fashion was changing as well as art, women were moving away from tight corseted Victorian clothing and looking to a Pre-Raphaelite and aesthetic painting to inspire them.” (Galore, 2018).

Liberty also sold embroidered textiles, such as Japanese fukusa, finely embroidered squares used to cover gifts, and designs by Scotswoman Ann Macbeth. For Liberty, Macbeth provided Art Nouveau embroidery designs featured in the firm's mail order catalogues until the outbreak of the WWI. Her designs were sold by Liberty as iron-on transfers for the embroidery of dresses and furniture.

This sleeveless evening dress is made of layers of blue and dark green silk chiffon, and decorated with silk embroidery. It probably was sold with a matching slip or underdress which did not come with the donation. The green silk has been placed over the blue; combined they create a deep peacock-blue-colored dress. The fabrics fall from the narrow shoulder seams and gather under the bust, forming a V-neck in front. The fabrics hang from this high waist to the hem, which is curved on both front and back. The gathers are emphasized by a line embroidered with brown silk.

The shoulders and hem are decorated with embroidered peacock feathers, in silk floss of green, blue and brown, which have also been placed over the natural waist at each side of the dress. The back includes a panel, made from both colors of silk treated as one, falling from the shoulders. Also decorated with embroidered peacock feathers, this would have created a diaphanous flow of fabric behind the woman wearing the dress.

The 1920s saw the widespread use of the term “flapper” to describe young women who were seen to mock the confining fashions and demure passivity of older women, and who reveled in their freedom. This break with traditional values can be found in the ideas of the Aesthetic Movement, with which Arthur Liberty was involved, and the promotion of dress reform in the late 19th century. Having been freed from restrictive corsets and long dresses, and reacting to the social changes brought about by the first World War, young women began to wear dresses that were loose-fitting, shortened to the knees, and body revealing. The flapper stands as one of the more enduring images of youth and new women in the 20th century, and she is viewed by modern-day Americans as something of a cultural heroine. However, back in the 1920s, many Americans regarded flappers as threatening to conventional society, representing a new moral order. Most of them were the daughters of the middle class, and they flouted middle-class values.

The cover image of Life magazine, February 2, 1922, by Frank Xavier Leyendecker, shows a dress quite similar in style to the one donated to the university. Sleeveless, with a V-neck and gathers under the bust, as well as a curved hem, and of a sheer fabric leaving little to the imagination, this young butterfly, labeled “The Flapper” represents the significant changes that took place in women’s clothing between 1910 and 1925.

References

Art nouveau liberty & Co. (n.d.). Retrieved February 27, 2021, from https://antique-marks.com/art-nouveau-liberty.html

Cooper, S. (2018, December 13). A historical look at Liberty London. Retrieved March 01, 2021, from https://www.crfashionbook.com/culture/a25470880/historical-look-at-liberty-london/

Dandyandrose. (2013, June 12). Arthur Lasenby Liberty. Retrieved February 27, 2021, from https://dandyandrose.com/tag/arthur-lasenby-liberty/

Galore, F. (2018, September 25). The history of liberty. Retrieved February 27, 2021, from https://www.fabricsgalore.co.uk/blogs/news/the-history-of-liberty#:~:text=Liberty%20of%20London%20has%20an,shawl%20emporium%20on%20Regent%20Street.&text=The%20shop%20was%20christened%20Liberty%20of%20London%20and%20absolutely%20flourished.

Liberty & Co. to 'Liberty Style'. (n.d.). Retrieved March 01, 2021, from http://www.archibaldknoxsociety.com/page_112141.html

Oshinsky, S. J. (2006). Christopher Dresser (1834-1904). Retrieved February 27, 2021, from https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/cdrs/hd_cdrs.htm

Parry, L. (2005). Textiles of the Arts and Crafts Movement. London: Thames & Hudson.

Reddy, K. (2018, May 11). 1920-1929. Retrieved February 27, 2021, from https://fashionhistory.fitnyc.edu/1920-1929/

William Morris. (n.d.). Retrieved February 27, 2021, from https://williammorrissociety.org/about-william-morris/

Source

Donor: Mr. and Mrs. Henry G. Clark

The donor information states that the dress was purchased by Mrs. Joseph W. Greene (Emmily Gifford Noyes, 1892-1977) at Liberty, London, England, in 1922. Mrs. Greene had given the dress to the Clark's daughter, Judith, to use as a costume dress.

Identifier

URI 1959.32.03

Contributor

Hannah Wood
Susan J. Jerome, MS '06

Citation

“Woman's Dress from Liberty,” Historic Textile and Costume Collection, accessed March 28, 2024, https://uritextilecollection.omeka.net/items/show/470.