After a £110,00 restoration, the famous Beetle Wing Dress worn by Victorian actress Ellen Terry for the role of Lady Macbeth in 1888 (image at left; click to enlarge) has been restored and is now on display at Smallhythe Place, in Kent. While this is a theatrical costume worn on stage rather than a fancy dress costume for a social event, its use of actual insect parts is interesting in the wake of comment-thread speculation on previous posts about the use of such materials in fancy dress costumes imitating insects and birds.
True to its name, the dress was covered in real beetle wings, which made repairing it an interesting challenge. An article published by Britain’s National Trust quotes Paul Meredith, House Manager at Smallhythe Place:
‘We had collected the beetle wings that had fallen off over the years so that the conservator was able to re-attach many of the originals, plus others that had been donated to us – 1,000 in total.”
The actual dress is a stunningly bright blue-green, and was an enormous sensation at the time:
The dress, transforming the beautiful red-haired actor into a cross between a jewelled serpent and a medieval knight, was the talk of the town after the first night. John Singer Sargent painted Terry wearing it, and the artist’s neighbour, Oscar Wilde, recalled the impact of Lady Macbeth arriving in a taxi: “The street that on a wet and dreary morning has vouchsafed the vision of Lady Macbeth in full regalia magnificently seated in a four-wheeler can never again be as other streets.”
The Sargent portrait is shown at right and the actual dress, in a photo the colors of which do not do it justice, at left. Click the images to enlarge. Better-colored photos, though only partial views, are available in the
National Trust article.
Special thanks to Eowyn for the tip!