Birth, Marriage and Death

The clothes in the Messel Dress Collection speak truthfully to us today about the lives of six generations of women, in good times and bad; their pregnancies, marriages, illnesses and deaths.

Birth

Two rare examples of maternity dress survive in the Messel Dress Collection - a tea gown worn by Maud Messel, whilst pregnant with her daughter Anne and a couture day dress worn by Anne Armstrong-Jones [later Countess of Rosse] when pregnant with her daughter Susan. The shaping and unfitted lining of the tea gown indicates that it may have been designed specifically for maternity wear. The couture dress designed by Irfé was most likely appropriated as a maternity gown.


Dress worn by Maud Messel during her pregnancy in 1902. CT004218.	Dress worn by Anne, Countess of Rosse during her pregnancy in 1927. CT004011. ©Nicholas Sinclair 2004.

Marriage

Four generations of wedding dresses are preserved in the Messel Dress Collection: Maud Messel's 1898 wedding gown and accessories designed by the London court dressmaker Sarah Fullerton Monteith Young. Anne Armstrong-Jones's [later Countess of Rosse] medieval wedding dress made by her mother in 1925, as well as the blue silk wedding dress worn at her second marriage in 1935. Susan, Viscountess of Vesci's wedding dress made by her mother Anne and the headdress made by her uncle Oliver Messel in 1950. Finally, Anna, Lady Oxmantown's four wedding and blessing dresses designed by herself for her marriage in 2004.


Maud Messel's wedding dress 1898. CT004033. ©Nicholas Sinclair 2004	Anne Armstrong-Jones's wedding dress 1925. CT004367. ©Nicholas Sinclair 2004

Death

Bereavements in the family are reflected in a large group of surviving mourning dress. The first garments to be preserved in the Messel Dress Collection were two mourning bodices worn by Mary Anne Herapath after the death of her husband in 1894.

Most of the mourning wear in the collection dates from 1910-1915, covering the period of the death of Linley and then Marion Sambourne. A black striped silk, Marshall and Snelgrove mourning suit of about 1914 shows evidence of the painful way in which Marions body shape changed during the last stages of the cancer from which she died in 1915.

By 1910 Maud Messel had discarded the tradition of wearing of old fashioned heavy mourning crape in favour of lighter more modern fabrics. Maud's mourning hats are some of the most elegant headwear in the collection.


Mourning bodice worn by Mary Anne Herapath c1895. CT004041. ©Nicholas Sinclair 2004		Mourning hat worn by Maud Messel c1910. CT004070