Irene Segalla for Madame Handley-Seymour. Costume design for a red Spanish-style evening dress and shawl for "The Green Scarf", dated 1919.
One of 276 costume designs for stage actresses mounted in three volumes (vols. 49,50,51)
(NB: Some fashion designs mixed in with this volume (E.4938 to 5105))

A woman in a red Spanish style evening dress and shawl.
1 of a set of 276 designs mounted in 3 volumes for costumes worn on the stage in London productions.

Given by Mrs. Joyce Whitehouse

This design is annotated as for Act I, Green Scarf, which is probably the Kenneth Sawyer Goodman one-act comedy (published 1915). However, there is no sign of the eponymous green chiffon scarf described in the play.

Elizabeth Handley Seymour, née Elizabeth Fielding, (1867-1948) was a court-dressmaker whose atelier was based at 47 New Bond Street. She designed gowns for the Court and Society during the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s, most famously the wedding dress for the Duchess of York (later Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother) and later, her Coronation dress. She also made costumes for many leading ladies of the London theatre throughout her career, including Irene Vanbrugh, Mrs Patrick Cooper, Gertrude Lawrence and others. These volumes of fashion designs were donated by Elizabeth's daughter, Mrs. Joyce Whitehouse in 1958.

When Elizabeth died in 1948 she had been married for 47 years to Major James Burke Handley-Seymour, so she must have been born c.1881 and married 1901. There is an Elizabeth Fielding identifying herself as a court dressmaker in the 1901 census (RG 13/83 f15 p19), aged 28,which would suggest a credible birth date of 1873 if it is the same Elizabeth Fielding.

- Daniel Milford-Cottam

Elizabeth Handley-Seymour's great-nephew contacted the Museum in April 2016 with biographical details on his great-aunt to clarify her history. She was born in Blackpool , Lancashire, in 1867, and moved to London during the 1890s. While she appears in the 1881 and 1891 cenusus records for Blackpool with the correct ages of 13 and 23; the 5 year discrepancy in her age on the 1901 census is perhaps explained by the fact that she was rather older than James Handley-Seymour, who she married that same year.

- Daniel Milford-Cottam, 15/04/2016

E.5086-1958