Lucile, the early feminist movement and the meaning of color
What did couturier Lady Duff Gordon have to do with the campaign for women's rights in England? Randy Bryan Bigham provides clues to a fashion mystery.
The new movie Suffragette, with Meryl Streep playing the extraordinary Mrs. Pankhurst, has many reading up on the Edwardian era movement spearheaded by the controversial feminist and her daughters. The clothes are already familiar to viewers, thanks to Downton Abbey and Mr. Selfridge, but the colors adopted by members of the radical Women’s Social and Political Union – purple, green and white – pose an intriguing question. Was one of the period's most famous designers behind the color scheme?
Purple (signifying loyalty), green (meaning hope) and white (for purity) were officially chosen by the WSPU in 1908, according to Cally Blackman, author with Aileen Ribeiro of A Portrait of Fashion, recently released.
Yet one of the Pankhursts’ friends, the London-based couturier Lucile (Lady Duff Gordon), was combining these colors three years earlier as a definite, though benign, statement on the suffrage situation: a green, purple and white floral taffeta gown from her Autumn 1905 collection was titled “A Protest.” Might this evening dress have inspired the colors of the British women's rights movement?
It’s known that Lucile herself was not a suffragist (in fact at one point she was openly opposed to the "votes for women" campaign) yet her friendships with Emmeline, Christabel and Sylvia Pankhurst endured; the beautiful Christabel in fact remained a client for several years. Lucile was even satirized in the 1909 feminist play How the Vote was Won.
Given her association with WSPU leaders, it isn't far-fetched that Lucile had something to do with the group's adoption of the now iconic suffrage colors. Since she met publicly and privately with the Pankhursts (particularly Christabel), it’s likely she had been consulted by them regarding color schemes and other dress advice. The ladies might even have been seated in the aristocratic audience at Lucile's Hanover Square salon when "A Protest," No. 28 in the Fall 1905 program, was first modeled. Someday research may prove the couturier's involvement.
For now, it is at least a fascinating possibility that Lucile, though a non-supporter of the cause, might have had a hand in devising the color combo selected to represent England's historic women's movement.
Randy Bryan Bigham is a fashion historian and the author of Lucile - Her Life by Design.
First published 16 October 2015 | Copyright 2015 Randy Bryan Bigham