Fading Glory & Gold Dust
The inspiration behind the design and the concept: During the Regency it was common to use chalk on the floor of a ballroom in order to stop the guests slipping in their flat ballet pump style shoes. If you were someone important, or had someone important coming to your Ball however you might hire an artist to chalk a design on the floor of your ballroom. When your guests arrived they would be wowed, they would then dance across it all evening and you would simply sweep up the chalk in the morning. This is a lost ephemeral art form and it was one of the first things I learnt about the Regency era. It therefore became a centre point of this collection from the very start of the research. The idea of creating a dress to pair with it, the design of which would flow into and reflect the drawing beneath came at exactly the same moment. Fading Glory and Gold Dust were designed as one to be seen together. To read more about Regency chalked floors please click here.
The designs of both the floor (titled Gold Dust) and the dress (titled Fading Glory) were created to illustrate empire. At first glance they appear to represent gradeur and glamour but amongst the decoration are hints of the damages wraught by war.
The dress stands on an image of the hemispheres of the globe. This is the one part of the design of the floor that is embroidered on paper. The central area of this part of the design is embroidered on the train of the dress.
The female figure, representing empire, stands aloft, and yet she is part of the world.
The embroidery is copied from a late 18th century sampler owned by the V&A, please click here
The design of the chalked floor encorprates the myths and legends that informed knowledge of the globe in centuries prior to the Regency.
The front of the design is divided,side to side, into ocean and land. On both of which Great Britain would strive, throughout the 1800's, for dominance.
The God of the sea rides his fish tailed steed toward the centre from the left and a centaur strides in from the right, over curved and straight lines, representing the sea and land, respectively. In their wake are two serpents taken from the upper canopy illustrations of mythical beasts in the Banqueting room of The Royal Pavilion.
The compass at the centre of the front of the design is taken from "La Virginea Pars", map of the East coast of North America held in The British Museum. It reflects Britain's loss of America in the American War of Independence in the late 1700's.
please click on the image
The Regency Wardrobe was shown at Firle Place, East Sussex in the Autumn of 2021. In the Downstairs drawing room the Regency era carpet was rolled up and Gold Dust drawn out, in chalk, on the floor, by theatre sceneic artst Charlotte Bownass; an artist with theatre experience would have been employed during the Regency. Fading Glory stood proud for the length of the exhibition at the centre of Gold Dust until, on the last night, Regency dancer Georgia Delve came to destroy the chalked design.
You can still the exhibition at Firle place virtually by clicking here
The Spirit of the Dress
A specially commissioned dance performed by Georgia Delve
Video created by Matt Lees using the original sketch of the floor
To read more please click here
The Spirit of the Dress - live
Performed by Georgia Delve in the Palladin Drawing Room at Firle Place on 26th October 2021
Title: The Bird Waltz for the piano forte or harp
Contributor Names: Panormo, Francesco -- 1764-1844
Created / Published:1820, monographic.
Published by G. E. Blake, 13 South 5th Street, [approximately 1820].
To see the original score click here
Played here in a specially commissioned recording by Giorgos Vardakis
The title of this piece is Fading Glory because the red paper tablecloth from which the dress is created is not colour fast. Therefore it/she will fade overtime, the striking impression it/she profers gradually fading. To read more about the shape and colour of the dress please click here.
To read more about the inspiration shown above please click here
Fading Glory and Gold Dust at Firle Place September 2021
The title of the dress is Fading Glory because the red paper tablecloth from which the dress is created is not colour fast. Therefore it/she will fade overtime, the striking impression it profers gradually fading. To read more about the shape and colour of the dress please click here.
To read more about the inspiration shown above please click here
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Above and below you can see a series of working images, giving insight into how various parts of the body of the dress were created.
*Embroidered along a papery central strip are teeth. These represent the teeth of the soliders whose corpses are known to have been robbed, whilst lying on the ground after the Battle of Waterloo, so that they could be wired into sets of dentures for the wealthy at home in Regency England.
And at the back of the design are the sodiers and sailors on whose backs empire was born. On one side two glamorous Regency soldiers reflect the perceived glory of going into battle for ones country. On the other a returned sailor balanced on a wooden leg, begging for coins on the street.
Both these images are from the design of a quilt stiched by hand by a Regency woman named Ann West, held at the V&A's clothworkers centre. To see it in it's entirity please click here.
The fan shape in the centre at the back of the design shows the connection between the military and fashion during the Regency. It is an illustration of: "The only known contemporary plan of the very first Brighton encampment (which was commonly known as the 1793 Downs camp)...still preserved in Worthing Museum, but in a very peculiar format....that years' series of encampments at Waterdown, Ashdown and Brighton & Hove...are all printed on the fabric of an ordinary fan, which is thought to have been produced for sale as a souvenir for an officer's lady."
- The Brighton Garrison 1793-1900 by R.C.Grant
The Vagrancy Act we still sometimes enact today, to move the homeless off the streets was first enacted in 1824. It was origianlly introduced because of upper class society's aversion to having to see the damage done to men who'd returned from the Napoleonic wars and found themselves on the streets.
If you'd like to see photos of this fan and read more about the inspiration behind this piece please click here..
Hear more about the background research behind Gold Dust the chalked floor designed to accompany Fading Glory; from a longer interview between Stephanie Smart and Kat Diuguid for The Textile Society of America given filmed in the run up to the exhibition of the collection at Firle Place, East Sussex in August 2021.