dress & jacket

Elsa Schiaparelli 1890 - 1973

Summary

An evening dress and jacket in midnight blue slubbed silk jersey with cream 'Rococo' scrollwork around the fronts and neck, Summer, 1937, with white petersham 'Schiaparelli, London' label to the jacket numbered 4749.,The jacket is boldly trimmed with cream articifial patent leather scrolls, hand painted in oils with spots and lines. Two small pockets are concealed within the strapwork at the front, and the jacket fastens at the waist with a large off-white shaped leather Dali-esque stylised lips buckle Matching plain bias-cut dress with integral pockets at the raised waistband and a large plastic zip to fasten> Shaped fold-over band to bodice top and matching belt with white leather buckle. Original midnight blue silk under-dress, also labelled 'Schiaparelli, London'. Provenance: Mrs Carol Dugdale (neé Timmis): see notes below. For an similar Schiaparelli jacket see KTA 24.6.2014 lot 98. Wallis Simpson (later the Duchess of Windsor) chose this ensemble for part of her wedding trousseau. She was photographed by Beaton wearing the jacket with matching dress the day before her wedding to the Duke of Windsor at the Chateau de Cande, France in May 1937. In the photographs, which were later reproduced in Vogue, (and which also included the Dali lobster print organdy dress in the same session), the Duchess was the epitome of refined elegance. Beaton photographed her again in a more formal studio setting wearing the jacket in June. Notes provided by Leo Dugdale, grandson of the wearer: "By all accounts, my grandmother was a very forceful character in her prime and a stickler for organisation and tidiness; having said that she must also have been a bit of an extrovert. She studied art at the Slade School of Fine Art under Henry Tonks. We still have a painting of hers of a bay in Italy, though it is unfinished because the italian police wouldn’t let her carry on painting because she was only wearing a bikini! There is also a story of her going to a drinks party only wearing a fur coat and string of pearls, but my father isn’t sure if this is true. Carol was married to John Mosley, Oswald's brother, before marrying Eric Dugdale, my Grandfather, a wealth Lloyds underwriter. They lived in St Leonard's Terrace in London as well as having an estate in Devon. Carol was friends with John Fowler and got him to decorate both properties. Fiona McCarthy writes about the Dugdales in her book “The Last Curtsey” and describes the house as “ludicrously overdone”. Carol patronised Schiaparelli and Hardy Amies during the 1930s, and had a number of hats by Madamoiselle Pavy."