The Lohengrin Cloak by Jean-Philippe Worth ca. 1890

Melba wore this cloak for her role as Elsa, in Wagner’s opera Lohengrin. Following her first appearance as Elsa at the Metropolitan Opera Company, the critic for the New York Tribune remarked: ‘the magnificence of her wardrobe was without a parallel as far as the local stage is concerned’. (quoted in Gray, 2004)  Melba always wore her own costumes, not those belonging to the theatre as had been the standard practice

Women in Cages (post)

http://vichist.blogspot.com/2012/01/women-in-cages.html
Really good post

Princess line dress

Princess line dress. Some women rejected mainstream fashion. This figure huging, princess line incorporates many features which dress reformers and feminists campaigned against on the grounds of health, safety and practicality. The dresse's weight -approx. 2 1/2 kilos- is due to its heavy boned bodice, sweeping train and internal construction. Its carefully placed tape ties adjust the fullness of the skirt constricting it to the body and hampering any movement. The fashion for excessive decoration was also condemmed as pretentious, tasteless and wasteful. Women were compared to the fussily trimmed furnishings in their drawing rooms and by implication presented as commodities whose main role was to be decorative within the confines of the home. The dress is made of silk satin, trimmed with panels of machine embroidery, cotton machine lace and silk fringe trimming http://www.museumoflondonprints.com/image.php?id=65658&idx=1&fromsearch=true