Costume
| Artist/Maker |
Great Britain’s leading theatre designer from the early 1930s to the mid 1950s, Oliver Messel (1904-1978) won international acclaim for his lavish, painterly and poetic designs informed by period styles. His work spans ballet, drama, film, musical, opera and revue. Messel’s traditional style of theatre design became unfashionable from the mid 1950s onwards, and he increasingly concentrated on painting, interior and textile design, including designing luxury homes in the Caribbean.
Messel essembled a reference collection of costumes and headdresses of diverse ethnic origin. This headdress made from clusters of beads, sequins and ribbons is probably from this collection, and would have been used to inspire the construction and design of his headdresses for theatre commissions.
Messel essembled a reference collection of costumes and headdresses of diverse ethnic origin. This headdress made from clusters of beads, sequins and ribbons is probably from this collection, and would have been used to inspire the construction and design of his headdresses for theatre commissions.
Object details
| Categories | |
| Object type | |
| Materials and techniques | Wire, beads, sequins, metal, ribbon, fabric, rhinestone |
| Brief description | Beaded headdress possibly part of Oliver Messel's reference collection. |
| Physical description | A headdress owned by Oliver Messel as part of his reference collection. The headdress has a solid cone like structure covered in red fabric. Attached to the structure are pink and white ribbons, looped in and out of the solid structure. Wire attached to the solid structure on which beads and sequins in silver, gold, green, red and blue are attached in clusters. Some rhinestones. |
| Dimensions |
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| Credit line | Acquired with the support of the National Lottery Heritage Fund, Art Fund and the Friends of the V&A |
| Object history | 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. |
| Summary | Great Britain’s leading theatre designer from the early 1930s to the mid 1950s, Oliver Messel (1904-1978) won international acclaim for his lavish, painterly and poetic designs informed by period styles. His work spans ballet, drama, film, musical, opera and revue. Messel’s traditional style of theatre design became unfashionable from the mid 1950s onwards, and he increasingly concentrated on painting, interior and textile design, including designing luxury homes in the Caribbean. Messel essembled a reference collection of costumes and headdresses of diverse ethnic origin. This headdress made from clusters of beads, sequins and ribbons is probably from this collection, and would have been used to inspire the construction and design of his headdresses for theatre commissions. |
| Bibliographic reference | 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) |
| Other number | ROT 8846 - TM Rotation Number |
| Collection | |
| Accession number | S.508-2006 |
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| Record created | October 17, 2006 |
| Record URL |
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