another History Wardrobe performance

I look forward to the coming of Lucy and Merrie of the History Wardrobe...a successful annual fundraiser for a church in Cottingham. This time it about Fairytale gowns.... already you'll be seeing in your minds eye the modern Disney princesses...Cinderella or Snow White or Dorothy...and the gowns they wear. The presentation was meticulously researched as usual.
Lucy brought an assortment of Ladybird Books of the Cinderella story...published at intervals over the decades...each slightly different and other favorite children's folk stories.

There are versions of Cinderella from all other the world

It is thought that the original one came from ancient Egypt or China ! It involved a slave girl and a slipper and the Chinese one tiny feet....It was a rather dark terrifying tale....much like the Brothers Grimm version which was collected by them in the early 1800s. Oral tradition passed on the stories and these were collected by Giambattistra Basile  and Charles Perrault (Tales of Mother Goose) in early 17th century and in different parts of the world.

The ugly sisters are not ugly in some versions but beautiful in looks but with ugly hearts and minds. Some are the dark terrifying versions like the ugly sisters chopping off toes to fit their feet in the slipper.....others don't have the blood and gore...

Lucy all dressed up in a costume made for the theater as opposed to the gown worn by Merrie AND painstakingly made by her...authentically by hand from an authentic pattern and is pinned into into it. The triangular stomacher was embroidered by a professional embroider.

she also made this....the pattern meticulously pieced together...She wore this over a stay with fitchu and a blue wool drawstring skirt....and red and white hooped stockings.

We were allowed to gently handle wearing white gloves this overskirt that was over250 years old...see the manipulated fabric panels and the rough stitching...Rough stitching enabled the fabric to be taken apart easily and used again or repaired...

see the original gathers at the waist...

see the blond lace

the lined hem and cobbled stitches

 shoes play a big part in fairy stories...

Wooden pattens worn over silk shoes to protect  them from the dirty streets that had human waste and everything else thrown into it !

I 'd like to say that inspite of the fact that Merril had injured herself falling off her bike and was strapped up she carried on regardless.....although in obvious discomfort she gave a great performance.

Lucy announced she had another book coming out....