Theatre costume
- Place of origin:
London, England (designed)
- Date:
- Artist/Maker:
Oliver Hilary Sambourne Messel, born 1904 - died 1978 (designer)
Clement, Thérèse (makers)
- Materials and Techniques:
Wire, velvet, beads, cellophane
- Credit Line:
Acquired with the support of the Heritage Lottery Fund, The Art Fund and the Friends of the V&A.
- Museum number:
- Gallery location:
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This charming headdress was designed by Oliver Messel for Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Old Vic in 1937. The director, Tyrone Guthrie, used the well-known Mendelssohn incidental music, which he felt was ‘redolent of crimson and gold opera houses, of operatic fairies in white muslin flying through groves of emerald canvas.’ Messel's designs perfectly echoed the concept.
Messel was always inventive in his use of materials and used makers, in this case Thérèse Clement, who understood his requirements. He knew that the theatre is heightened realism, so the flowers are a mixture not of fabrics but metallic paper, chandelier drops, metal discs and cellophane which subtly convey the fantasy, inhuman elements of the fairy queen and her steely character. Titania was played in this production by Vivien Leigh who, crowned with 'stars' and with the gauze ribbons falling down her back, looked the epitome of an imperious Victorian fairy queen. A. E. Wilson reported that she was ‘like an exquisite picture from some Victorian lady’s keepsake’. Messel, was a good friend of Leigh and kept this headdress as a prized possession, storing it in a box which he painted himself in characteristic style. The box is now as desirable as the headdress is contains.
Oliver Messel (1904-1978) was Britain’s leading theatre designer from the early 1930s to the mid 1950s, working in every aspect of entertainment - ballet, drama, film, musical, opera and revue - as well as in interior decoration and textile design. His lavish, painterly and romantic designs informed by period styles, were perfectly in tune with his times and earned him an international reputation. By 1960, however, Messel’s style had become unfashionable, having no sympathy with the new 'kitchen sink' school of theatre. He increasingly concentrated on his non-theatrical painting and designing and eventually retired to the Caribbean, where he began a new career designing and building highly idiosyncratic luxury villas.
Physical description
Heavy wire circle concealed by brown paper tape covered with flowers of off-white velvet with silver faceted bead centres, alternating with flat roses of bright pink ribbon with gold braid centres; these are leaves backed with green organdie, faceted silver-bows behind them, the larger having rough cellophane bows behind them, and occasional pearls and silver faceted sequins on wire supports. Above the flowers stand wires, each supporting a large pearl alternating with longer wires each supporting a silver backed rhinestone surrounded by a tuft of shredded cellophane. Fixed at the back of the head-dress is a large flat bow of gauze silver strip ribbon with long short wires each ending in a small circle of silver faceted beads around a central pearl; from below the remainder emerge the loops of a serptentine wire covered with gold metal mesh. From the sides hang long frings of individual strings threaded with oval silvered beads separated by horizontal silver scallop-edged flower sequins from lines of three faceted silvered beads; at the bottom of each string hangs a large vertical faceted silver sequin.
Place of Origin
London, England (designed)
Date
1937 (designed)
Artist/maker
Oliver Hilary Sambourne Messel, born 1904 - died 1978 (designer)
Clement, Thérèse (makers)
Materials and Techniques
Wire, velvet, beads, cellophane
Object history note
The headdress was designed by Oliver Messel for A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Old Vic in 1937 with Vivien Leigh as Titania and Robert Helpmann as Oberon. The production was revived the following year with Dorothy Hyson taking over from Leigh. In a a portrait photograph taken by Anthony, Leigh is wearing this headdress, though only a few of the jewels above her forehead can be seen. Production photographs show Leigh wearing the lighter headdress (S.507-2006) which Messel designed for the early, more active, scenes. This grander headdress was worn for the formal blessing scene at the end.
Messel decorated box S.492:1/2-2006 to house the two headdresses.
Lord Snowdon, Oliver Messel's nephew, inherited Messel's theatre designs and other designs and artefacts. The designs were briefly stored in a disused chapel in Kensington Palace before being housed at the V&A from 1981 on indefinite loan. The V&A Theatre Museum purchased the Oliver Messel collection from Lord Snowdon in 2005.
Descriptive line
Head-dress by Oliver Messel for Titania in Shakespeare's play, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Old Vic 1937
Bibliographic References (Citation, Note/Abstract, NAL no)
Pinkham, Roger (ed.) Oliver Messel: an exhibition held at the Theatre Museum, Victoria and Albert Museum, 22 June - 30 September 1983. London: Victoria and Albert Museum, 1983. 200p., ill ISBN 0905209508)
Exhibition History
Oliver Messel: an exhibition held at the Theatre Museum Victoria and Albert Museum (Victoria and Albert Museum 22/06/1983-30/10/1983)
Associated names
Leigh, Vivien
Production Note
Reason For Production: Commission
Materials
Velvet; Beads; Sequins; Cellophane; Wire; Gauze; Pearls (imitation); Masking tape; Organdie; Rhinestone
Categories
Entertainment & Leisure; Stage costumes; Hats & headwear
Production Type
Design
Collection code
T&P
