I’ve been hard at work for the last month on three dolls; updating my original porcelain Marie-Antoinette for a serious collector, creating a Queen Elizabeth II fabric doll and creating my second medieval doll, Phillipa of Hainault. I completed and shipped Phillipa a couple of weeks ago to Holland and I have almost finished Marie-Antoinette. And I am now in the middle of the extensive embroidery work on Queen Elizabeth’s dress.
My husband called in to my studio yesterday and asked how many stitches went into the dress and I was unable to answer him. Certainly, many more than 10,000, but who’s counting? I just put my head down and get on with it while listening to an audio book.
Almost therapeutic! When you look at the embroidery spread over my workbench you can get an idea of what is involved:
Queen Elizabeth’s dress has been described as “the most important British dress design of the 20th century” and it certainly has its own place in history. The work of Sir Norman Hartnell, created with design input from the Queen, it has become one of the most emblematic outfits of the House of Windsor.
The dress alone weighed 30 pounds, or 13 kilograms, which, with the Robe of Estate, made of deep purple velvet and an ermine trim, made for a substantial and heavy costume.
Apparently Hartnell’s dress took 3,500 hours to make, which would equate to 500 days at 7 hours a day. The embroidery was worked on by six artists over 8 months using a variety of threads including gold, silver and pale green and pink (the Queen had requested that the embellishments on her gown include colour rather than just being white or metallic).
My copy is, of course, smaller so less distance to sew! But it is a faithful replica and scaling down the design creates its own complications as you can imagine. Also, of course, I had to make my crown and jewellery whereas Hartnell’s dressmakers didn’t have to worry about that.
While some of my porcelain dolls presented a significant challenge (especially Elizabeth I and Henry VIII), this is the greatest challenge in my fabric range. But the end product is certainly worth it – I just wonder how many more coronation robes I have in me???
I have also been thinking about completely overhauling and updating my web site and, as part of this activity, will be adding several of my original male porcelain dolls to the site: Louis XIV, Louis XV and Louis XVI and Lord Darnley (Mary, Queen of Scots’ murdered husband). I hope to get started right after Christmas.
Lord Henry Darnley with Mary, Queen of Scots (younger & older dolls)
The Louis dolls also include something very special, the Order of the Holy Spirit worn by French kings. I decided to commission the original Paris jeweller to make scaled-down copies for these dolls so they alone are quite a collector’s item and quite valuable in their own right.
Marie-Antoinette with Louis XVI
During the French Revolution, the Order of the Holy Spirit was officially abolished by the French government, although the exiled Louis XVIII, the grandson of Louis XV and brother of Louis XVI (who ascended the throne after the defeat of Napoleon) continued to acknowledge it. Following the Bourbon restoration, the order was revived and were awarded on the coronation of Charles X in 1825, only to be abolished once more by the Orleanist Louis-Philippe in 1830. Despite the abolition of the order, both the Orleanist and Legitimist pretenders have continued to nominate members to the order, even after the abolition of the French monarchy”.
Well, back to work. Christmas is peeping its head over the horizon. Always a busy time of the year. So must finish my current tasks to clear working room!
Take care.
All the best
Victoria
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