Ishbel Aberdeen's 'Irish' Dresses: Embroidery, Display and Meaning, 1886-1909

Abstract

Ishbel, Countess of Aberdeen, commissioned and wore four dresses between 1886 and 1909 that can be seen to represent her commitment to Irish craft and design as well as to Irish Home Rule. One of the dresses (made 1887–1888), elaborately embroidered with Celtic motifs, was worn by Lady Aberdeen on several occasions during a twenty-year period; the court train made for the gown also may have included panels originally made for the 1886 dress. All the dresses were made by Irish hands and three were made with Irish material. A narrative about the production and consumption of the four dresses facilitates an investigation into the relationship between a patron/consumer and an object (the dress) as it was presented to a viewing public while, at the same time, it makes space available in which to discuss the dressmakers/designers and the embroiderers—bodies that worked collaboratively to produce an object that flamboyantly entered the public space of an aristocrat-on-view for other aristocrats and for consumers of these ‘views’ as they were represented in the press. Thus, while the dresses can tell us about Lady Aberdeen, a narration of their production also can reclaim an historical space for Irish dressmakers and embroiderers.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 3 citations exist upstream.