Guelph museum presents history of local fashion icon
The Guelph Civic Museum is currently commemorating the history of Guelph-raised fashion designer Lucile, Lady Duff-Gordon through two exhibits displaying her hugely interesting life and work as a dressmaker, as well as a four-part lecture series.
The museum’s first-floor exhibit shows a timeline of Lady Duff-Gordon’s life from 1863 to 1935 and her journey designing unique and imaginative dresses around the world, including her travels on—and her survival of—the Titanic. The third-floor exhibit shows some of the incredible gowns she created in her lifetime under the brand Lucile Ltd. Each dress was customized to fit the wearer’s individual personality.
“…her journey designing unique and imaginative dresses around the world, including her travels on—and her survival of—the Titanic.”
The first lecture to accompany the exhibit, “Patriotic Acts of Consumption: Lucile and the Vaudeville Fashion Show Craze,” was presented by Marlis Schweitzer, a theatre professor at York University. In the span of 40 minutes, Schweitzer took the audience through Lady Duff-Gordon’s journey with the touring Ziegfeld circuit where she was one of many short acts in a grand and spectacular show that individuals all over North America could come to see for only a dollar.
As a dressmaker and the self-proclaimed inventor of the fashion show, Lady Duff-Gordon’s show would display 68 of her original, handmade dresses with a net worth of over $1 million. Women would be hand-picked and trained to perfection in order to model the dresses. She wanted to ensure that each of her models fit the part, often giving them upper class names to suit the extravagance of her dresses, and made sure each model was able to tell the gowns’ stories.
“…the self-proclaimed inventor of the fashion show, Lady Duff-Gordon’s show would display 68 of her original, handmade dresses…”
Lucile’s show, “Fleurette’s Dream,” encouraged new forms of self-expression and emphasized clothing, creativity, and individual psychology, but also supported the war effort through her inclusion of charities and her exuberant donations. During the war, while the U.S. government discouraged consumerism, targeting women and their “excess” spending on clothing and jewelry, Lady Duff-Gordon encouraged consumption, telling women that it was patriotic to look their best at all times.
This may be one of the last times Lucile’s work is on display. As the dresses featured in the gallery age, they are getting more delicate and therefore more difficult to transport and display without becoming damaged. There is one particular dress on display in the third-floor exhibit that lays displayed on a table due to the fact that it was far too delicate to hang or display on a mannequin. After this exhibit, some of the dresses will move on to make some of their last appearances in North America, while others will be packed up and stored for safekeeping.
Photo courtesy of Liz Hearne.