Fancy Dress Costume
ca. 1940 (made)
Artist/Maker |
Costume and fancy dress balls were a feature of social life for many centuries, even surviving into the Depression years of the 1920s and 1930s. Guests vied with each other to devise or hire ever more splendid and eye-catching costumes.
One guest with a head start was designer Oliver Messel. He would often wear adaptations of his own stage designs or devise fantastic creations for himself and his friends. This particular costume was worn by him at a party given by Nicholas de Gunsberg in the Bois de Boulogne in Paris in the late 1920s. Although simple in outline, the costume is made spectacular by the design of clouds, scrolls and stars, painted onto the jacket while Messel was wearing it by the French poet Jean Cocteau, the enfant terrible of 1920s Paris. The characteristic stars became a Cocteau signature motif.
Oliver Messel (1904-1978) was Britain’s leading theatre designer throughout the 1930s, ‘40s and ‘50s, mastering every aspect of entertainment - ballet, drama, film, musical, opera and revue - as well working in interior decoration and textile design. His lavish, painterly and romantic concepts were perfectly in tune with the times and earned him an international reputation. By 1960, however, that style was becoming unfashionable, and Messel gradually abandoned theatre and built a new career designing luxury homes in the Caribbean.
One guest with a head start was designer Oliver Messel. He would often wear adaptations of his own stage designs or devise fantastic creations for himself and his friends. This particular costume was worn by him at a party given by Nicholas de Gunsberg in the Bois de Boulogne in Paris in the late 1920s. Although simple in outline, the costume is made spectacular by the design of clouds, scrolls and stars, painted onto the jacket while Messel was wearing it by the French poet Jean Cocteau, the enfant terrible of 1920s Paris. The characteristic stars became a Cocteau signature motif.
Oliver Messel (1904-1978) was Britain’s leading theatre designer throughout the 1930s, ‘40s and ‘50s, mastering every aspect of entertainment - ballet, drama, film, musical, opera and revue - as well working in interior decoration and textile design. His lavish, painterly and romantic concepts were perfectly in tune with the times and earned him an international reputation. By 1960, however, that style was becoming unfashionable, and Messel gradually abandoned theatre and built a new career designing luxury homes in the Caribbean.
Object details
Categories | |
Object type | |
Parts | This object consists of 2 parts. (Some alternative part names are also shown below)
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Brief description | Costume worn by Oliver Messel at a party given by Nicholas de Gunsberg in the Bois de Boulogne late 1920s. The jacket painted by Jean Cocteau. |
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 | This particular costume was worn by him at a party given by Nicholas de Gunsberg in the Bois de Boulogne in Paris in the late 1920s. The design was painted on the jacket by Jean Cocteau. 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. Historical significance: This is the only recorded fancy dress costume painted by Jean Cocteau, although there have been examples of artists painting theatrical costumes on the wearer. |
Summary | Costume and fancy dress balls were a feature of social life for many centuries, even surviving into the Depression years of the 1920s and 1930s. Guests vied with each other to devise or hire ever more splendid and eye-catching costumes. One guest with a head start was designer Oliver Messel. He would often wear adaptations of his own stage designs or devise fantastic creations for himself and his friends. This particular costume was worn by him at a party given by Nicholas de Gunsberg in the Bois de Boulogne in Paris in the late 1920s. Although simple in outline, the costume is made spectacular by the design of clouds, scrolls and stars, painted onto the jacket while Messel was wearing it by the French poet Jean Cocteau, the enfant terrible of 1920s Paris. The characteristic stars became a Cocteau signature motif. Oliver Messel (1904-1978) was Britain’s leading theatre designer throughout the 1930s, ‘40s and ‘50s, mastering every aspect of entertainment - ballet, drama, film, musical, opera and revue - as well working in interior decoration and textile design. His lavish, painterly and romantic concepts were perfectly in tune with the times and earned him an international reputation. By 1960, however, that style was becoming unfashionable, and Messel gradually abandoned theatre and built a new career designing luxury homes in the Caribbean. |
Bibliographic reference | Pinkham, Roger (ed.) Oliver Messel, London, V&A, 1983
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Collection | |
Accession number | S.495:1/2-2006 |
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Record created | March 28, 2007 |
Record URL |
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