Anatomy of a Dress

I'm all dressed up and nowhere to go!

 I was supposed to meet a friend for coffee this morning but unfortunately her house suffered the wrath of Storm Isha last night so she's awaiting a builder and we've postponed our date until next week. 

I'm wearing an old favourite, an Anokhi maxi dress  bought from their flagship store in Jaipur, Rajasthan's Pink City, back in January 2019 along with a reversible block printed jacket from Kharibu (from whom I bought my Pre-Raphaelite moss green velvet maxi).

 

This dress holds so many memories of India, from backpacking around Rajasthan, drinking in swanky bars in downtown Mumbai & staying in Portuguese-era heritage hotels in Goa to our closer-to-home travels in Greece and Spain along with National Trust days out, nights on the town, mornings spent rummaging the rails in the charity shops of the West Midlands and those endless days spent at home during Lockdown.

Two of my favourite memories were of risking life and limb to pose on a turret overlooking the 17th Century step well in Jodhpur and of having a chat with the saffron-turbaned sadhu in a remote village in Rajasthan where he asked me if I'd voted for Brexit (the answer, of course, was a resounding, No!)

Around the same time as I bought the dress, Bollywood royalty Sara Ali Khan was snapped by the Times of India wearing it around Mumbai although sadly, our paths never crossed.

I kept the Anokhi tag as, not being used to buying clothes from proper shops, having a fancy cardboard label attached to a garment remains a bit of a novelty and I've kept it in one of my travel journals for posterity. It describes the dress as a Cotton Peshwaz, which was said to be one of the most opulent forms of Moghul clothing for women. Originating in Persia, it was introduced to India during Babur's reign (1483 - 1530) and comprises of a fitted bodice with a full skirt which fastened at the waist (mine has a side zip). Due to the way the dress was cut at the front, women were required to wear a choli (blouse) underneath, my modern version came with a black cotton camisole top.

An early Twentieth century Peshwaz snapped when we visited in the National Museum of India in New Delhi in 2019

This 18th Century Peshwaz is on display in the V&A

My journal tells me that I paid 3350 rupees for my dress (around £35 back in 2019), expensive by Indian standards but to me, it's an absolute bargain for an ethically made, timeless classic and the memories entwined within the fabric are priceless.

With temperatures below zero for most of last week, eBay photos took a back seat and, in between swimming, charity shopping and socialising, when we met Liz & Al at the cinema for artisan pizza, red wine & another viewing of Poor Things, I managed to squeeze in some reading - finishing William Morris by Himself and Hilary Mantel's Beyond Black which, once I'd started, realised that I'd already read. On the pile this week are The Final Confession of Mabel Stark and A Scandalous Life: The Biography of Jane Digby (which I'm already halfway through).

Lady Jane Digby (1807 - 1881) - William Charles Ross

I first heard of Lady Jane Digby, a notorious aristocratic beauty born in Dorset in 1807, when we visited the mountain village of Doukades in Corfu (HERE) last year. At 17, Lady Jane married Lord Ellenborough, the governor-general of India and scandalised English society by having an torrid affair with her cousin before falling head over heels with an German prince, divorcing her husband and moving to Germany. After enjoying a close relationship with Ludwig I of Bavaria, she married Baron Karl von Venningen of Munich before embarking on an affair with the Greek Count, Spyridon Theotokis. After a duel between her love rivals she divorced the baron, converted to the Greek Orthodox faith and married Spyridon. The couple moved to his family home in Doukades. After the marriage broke down Lady Jane was rumoured to have had an affair with Greece's King Otto before meeting General Christodoulos Hatziperos, hero of the Greek War for Independence, where she acted as his queen, living in caves, riding horses and hunting. Lady Jane then travelled to the Middle East and fell in love with Sheik Medjuel el Mezrab, who was twenty years her junior. The couple married under Muslim law and stayed together until her death 28 years later. Lady Jane adopted native dress, lived a nomadic lifestyle in tents in the desert and learned Arabic in addition to the eight languages in which she was already fluent. What a woman!

Lady Jane Digby in Palmyra (1859) by Carl Haag

The Kinky Shed is full to bursting after our fab friends Graz & Steve from Moseley Vintage Hub did some negotiating on our behalf and acquired a large personal collection of clothing amassed between the 1940s and 1980s and I've spent most of the weekend washing, steaming and sewing on buttons. 

I couldn't resist snaffling this groovy wool-blend maxi dress, made by Shelana of London, a British Boutique label which ceased to exist sometime in the early '80s. Obviously this is from the 1970s with its have-yer-eye-out dagger collars!

Along with the job lot, we've managed to find some cool stuff recently, weather permitting I'll try and share a bit of it with you sometime soon. In the meantime I'll leave you with William who, this time last year, was just an occasional visitor to the garden.

Spoilt, moi?