This photograph shows a page from Doris Langley Moore's book The Woman in Fashion, published in 1949.
The book showcased items from her collection of historical women's fashion modelled by famous faces of the period. Vivien Leigh appears in the book three times in three different dresses from 1877, 1883 and 1898 respectively.
This image shows Vivien Leigh in a period costume from 1877, described as a 'bottle-green gabardine tunic, trimmed with intricate embroidery and coloured fringe and worn over a black half-trained skirt'.The dress is reported as constituting 'the beginning' of Doris Langley Moore's collection. Doris Langley Moore describes the piece as having been 'Bought in Paris by a woman accustomed to spend susbtantial sums on dress'.
That Vivien Leigh should be chosen to model dresses from this particular period in a volume spanning the 1700s to the 1920s seems to relate directly to her appearance in several period costume films and plays across the 1940s. Her most recent film performance had been in an adaptation of Anna Karenina in 1948, for example, where she was costumed in outfits representative of fashions of the 1870s.
References
Langley Moore, Doris. The Woman in Fashion. London: B.T. Batsford Ltd., 1949. p. 95.
The book showcased items from her collection of historical women's fashion modelled by famous faces of the period. Vivien Leigh appears in the book three times in three different dresses from 1877, 1883 and 1898 respectively.
This image shows Vivien Leigh in a period costume from 1877, described as a 'bottle-green gabardine tunic, trimmed with intricate embroidery and coloured fringe and worn over a black half-trained skirt'.The dress is reported as constituting 'the beginning' of Doris Langley Moore's collection. Doris Langley Moore describes the piece as having been 'Bought in Paris by a woman accustomed to spend susbtantial sums on dress'.
That Vivien Leigh should be chosen to model dresses from this particular period in a volume spanning the 1700s to the 1920s seems to relate directly to her appearance in several period costume films and plays across the 1940s. Her most recent film performance had been in an adaptation of Anna Karenina in 1948, for example, where she was costumed in outfits representative of fashions of the 1870s.
References
Langley Moore, Doris. The Woman in Fashion. London: B.T. Batsford Ltd., 1949. p. 95.
| Subject | Vivien Leigh |
|---|---|
| Source | Fashion Museum Bath |
| Date | 2019-09-26 |
| Rights | Fashion Museum Bath |
| Format | Photograph |
| Type | Dress |
| Coverage | 1870s-1940s |