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La Belle Epoque and Liberty & Co.’s Opulent Fashions

Nora Ellen Carleson, Fashion Archives Intern, Summer 2018

Women’s fashions during La Belle Epoque, a time between the end of the Franco-Prussian War and the start of World War I (1871-1914), were just one of a series of art forms that flourished during that period, considered a golden age of art and design. Numerous fashion houses and department stores were founded in La Belle Epoque that went on to create fashions now regarded as masterpieces of fashion design.

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 Liberty & Co. label on interior petersham. Evening Dress, Liberty & Co., c.1912, 
Maryland Historical Society, Gift of the Frances B. Wells Estate, 2016.11.3

A new acquisition in the Maryland Historical Society’s Fashion Archive (2016.11.3) beautifully represents the wealth and luxury from the best and newest couture houses of the period. From Liberty & Co. of London and Paris, this stunning Evening Dress is an extremely lavish example of the opulence that defined high fashion for women in the waning years of La Belle Epoque.

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 Evening Gown (front), Liberty & Co., c.1912,
Maryland Historical Society Fashion, Gift of the Frances B. Wells Estate,  2016.11.3

Liberty & Co. of London was founded in 1875 by Arthur Lasenby Liberty and was intended to be an elite department store catering to lovers of the exotic, artistic, and extravagant. The emporium was known for their creative designs at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries. These fashions were inspired by the Aesthetic and English Arts and Crafts Movements, as well as styles from the Far and Near East. While their founder once quipped, “I was determined not to follow existing fashions but to create new ones,” the fashion house also showcased high-end clothing in the most expensive and highbrow styles of the day. This gown is an example of Liberty’s melding of existing fashion with innovative additions, such as the long trailing sash and the embroidery pattern, elements of design from Near Eastern styles now commonly associated with Liberty.

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Evening Gown (back), Liberty & Co., c.1912, 
Maryland Historical Society,  Gift of the Frances B. Wells Estate, 2016.11.3

One of a number of garments originally belonging to Mrs. Mary George White, this evening gown is dated to the Titanic Era, c. 1912. The dress was likely purchased in Europe before her Y.W.C.A.’s relief efforts in Paris during World War I and after her schooling in Baltimore. Originally from McKinney, Texas, Mrs. White attended both Goucher College (class of 1907) and Johns Hopkins (class of 1911), where she was one of the first women to obtain a master of arts in philosophy. On October 26, 1918, she married Major Charles Francis Bates.  President Wilson’s daughter, Margaret, Mrs. White’s college roommate, stood by her side as maid of honor. Among the other magnificent La Belle Epoque and World War I era items worn by Mrs. White in the MdHS collection is her 1918 wedding dress.

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Evening Dress (overlay detail), Liberty & Co., c.1912, 
Maryland Historical Society,  Gift of the Frances B. Wells Estate, 2016.11.3
  

While all of the items in the MdHS collection owned by Mrs. White display her status as a wealthy and stylish young women of the 1910s, this Liberty & Co. dress is particularly remarkable. Comprised of a light golden peach silk and a light pink chiffon, the gown is further adorned with a chiffon overlay on the bodice and the skirts that is embroidered in metallic gold thread in a detailed floral pattern reminiscent of Iznik tiles from Turkey. Adding to the opulence, the dress boasts hundreds of oval wooden beads that were individually gold leafed. Seemingly covered in gold and with glistening silk, this gown would have sparkled under newly installed electric lights as Mrs. White walked into a room embodying the lavishness of La Belle Epoque.

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Evening Dress (beading detail), Liberty & Co., c.1912, 
Maryland Historical Society,  Gift of the Frances B. Wells Estate, 2016.11.3

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Resources:

The Courier-Gazette (McKinney, TX). “Officer Weds ‘Y’ Worker in Baltimore.” November 3,

1918.

Davies-Strodder, Cassie, Jenny Lister, and Lou Taylor. London Society Fashion 1905–1925: The

Wardrobe of Heather Firbank. London, England: V & A Publishing, 2015.

The Johns Hopkins University Circular: Preliminary Register, no. 9 (1910).

Maltby, Martha Humphreys, and Emma Siggins White, comps. Genesis of the White

Family. Kansas City, MO:Tiernan-Dart printing Company, 1920.

“Store Heritage.” Liberty London. Accessed June 11, 2018. https://www.libertylondon.com/uk/

information/the-store/store-heritage.html.

Trumble, Angus, and Andrea Wolk Rager. Edwardian Opulence: British Art at the Dawn of the

Twentieth Century. New Haven, CT: Yale Center for British Art, 2013.

Wood, Martin. Liberty Style. London, England: Frances Lincoln, 2014.