- Joined
- Nov 26, 2016
- Location
- central NC
Alva Vanderbilt as a Venetian princess in 1883 (Messy Nessy Chic)
Alice Vanderbilt wore an “Electric Light” dress that incorporated a working light bulb and Lila O. Vanderbilt dressed as a hornet. Perhaps Miss Kate Fearing Strong topped them all with her cat costume. She wore a ribbon tied around her neck reading “Puss,” and her cat dress was “complete with an actual (dead) white feline as a head piece and a gown sewn with the body parts of real kitties.” The New York Times reported that the “overskirt was made entirely of white cats’ tails sewed on a dark background.”
Alice Vanderbilt’s dress lit up from a battery-powered torch hidden under her skirt, representing
an “Electric Light”. (Messy Nessy Chic)
Miss Strong, fondly known amongst her circle as “Puss.” (Messy Nessy Chic)
The 1883 ball was deemed the social event of the year, and Alva Vanderbilt was propelled to the heights of the city’s most elite.
Of course Alva wasn’t the only socialite who knew how to throw a great party. Many more fancy dress balls were hosted in the months and years to come providing ladies with abundant opportunities to adorn their luxurious dresses complete with dead animals. To help ladies think of new and novel costume ideas, Ardern Holt authored “Fancy Dresses Described: or, What to Wear at Fancy Balls.” The Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising Museum states on their blog that the book was so popular it went through multiple printings between the 1880s and 1890s. Mr. Holt also wrote a complementing publication called “Gentlemen’s Fancy Dress: How to Choose It.” The Internet Archive hosts a digitized version of “Fancy Dresses…” that describes the collections.
Arden Holt opened his book for the ladies with the age old question, “But, what are we to wear?” His suggested options, with detailed directions on crafting the costumes, included historical figures, mythical goddesses and fictional characters. He also offered ideas for conceptual costumes. Windmill, glowworm, carrier pigeon, mist, postage, twilight, cherry pie and air are just a few that Holt’s book proposed.
More elaborate costume pictures to follow.
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