More progress! It worked, but the gauze I used ended up feeling kind of thick overall– go for as light a gauze as you can, to avoid being too hot with all of the necessary layers. More like mid-thigh length, rather than below the knee. This photo shows how they used partial wings on the bodice– they’ve been clipped to a much blunter shape than the original pointed wing shape: And this one (unlike some others where the lighting’s softer) gives a really good look at the spacing of the wings on the bodice vs. the skirt: Judging from this photo I’ve actually spaced the wings on my skirt and sleeves a bit more closely than the original, but I really wanted to up the “wow” factor for this costume. After consultation we settled upon treating the costumes in our large freezer, which runs at -30 degrees, for 72 hours and 14 days in our small freezer, which runs at -24 degrees, in order to kill the infestation. Not a real progress post, just a brief update to let you know that I’m still plugging away at attaching the beetlewings to the Lady Macbeth dress. I know it should’ve been five layers, but I miscounted and figured it wouldn’t matter anyway. There were many challenges along the way; avoiding cross contamination, identifying materials that would suffer in the freezing process and carrying the boxes down icy steps, through small doorways and over a busy road to the freezer all in very cold temperatures. Finally, I glued the shorter weft section over the top of that, at the same level as the first one. That being said, I’m pretty sure that Sargent took some artistic license with his painting (he totally did; Ellen Terry was *not* as tall as he made her in the painting), because even with my sleeves cut down to a mere inch above the ground, they still weren’t as long as they look in the painting when I raised my arms. We took a bunch of photos all around the hotel, but it was tough to find just the right dramatic background…. I decided instead to switch gears and embroider the trim myself on extra green cotton gauze. As I discussed in my patterning post, the sleeves are cut with the long edge at the shoulder and hang almost to the floor. One thing about the sleeves always bugged me (no pun intended): is the trim on the outside or the inside? Instead, I made a fitted yoke out of cotton sateen (dyed in the same bath as my cotton gauze) that was set on a waistband. In the spring of 2012 carpet beetles were found to have infiltrated not only our costumes store but the conservation boxes in which our collection of theatrical costumes are stored. The final touch for this costume was the crown, which Lady Macbeth is shown raising above her head in the Sargent painting. It appears to be made of net, gathered for texture and sewn with lines of gold thread. On removal the costumes were left to defrost at room temperature for 48 hours before being cleaned. The front was an A-line, while the back was a half-circle, both with gathers at the waistline for extra fullness. The 250 costumes worn by Ellen Terry during her sixty-year career were under serious threat from woolly bears, the name given to the larvae of carpet beetle. So above the rounded neckline of the dress there’s a high ivory collar. I found that as long as I didn’t try to clip across the entire curve of the wing at once– instead putting the clipper only halfway across the curve at a time– the wings would clip cleanly the same way fingernails do. We decided our only option was to treat the costumes ourselves using the limited resources on-site. The Sargent painting pretty clearly shows it on the outside, since you can see both the outer sleeve and its (plain) lining. After consulting with fellow costumers online I came to the conclusion that the dress in its original form had the trim on the outside, but that at some point during its history the trim must have been folded to the inside, with tiny darts taken to keep it smooth. Here’s a diagram of the cuts: Then I divided my wearable wig into two sides (following this very useful tutorial to avoid showing the wig cap at the part) and divided each of those sides into an upper and lower section. We use cookies to provide you with a better service. These posts are getting farther apart due to the complexity of each step, but I promise that we’re nearing the light at the end of the tunnel! Ellen Terry wore this “beetle wing” dress for an 1888 performance of 'Macbeth' at the Lyceum Theatre. Then, when the dress was restored they put it back in its original condition with the trim on the outside where it belonged. Ellen Terry’s ‘Lady Macbeth’ dress prior to restoration. The cost of hiring a refrigeration unit was prohibitive as was the possibility of sending all the costumes elsewhere to be treated. The original belt for the gown appears to have been made of metal links with a raised design on them– the belt wraps twice around the waist and ties in front with a length of twisted fabric. I have no idea. After five years and more than 700 hours of delicate restoration work, a green gown shimmering with the iridescent wings of 1,000 beetles, which caused a sensation when Ellen Terry wore it … Whether you are interested in conservation, gardening, or simply want to be part of a friendly team doing valuable work, we always welcome new volunteers at Smallhythe Place. Ellen Terry's costumes require careful attention and particular methods of conservation. The collection is kept in carefully regulated conditions which control light, temperature and humidity but textiles are also notoriously susceptible to pests. Her famous beetle-wing dress. Structure: Most of my decisions on structure were based on the desire to avoid the dress sagging/stretching downwards from the sheer weight of the skirt. The dress, designed by Alice Comyns Carr, is adorned with real wings shed naturally by the jewel beetle of Southeast Asia. (a.k.a. I figured that once painted with metallic paint, the links would be close enough to pass for a stage costume. When it came to costuming, Dame Ellen Terry paid attention to the smallest detail. The water in the center was actually a lot deeper than I’d expected– about knee-deep– so my dress got pretty soaked! Anyway, as you recall I’d originally planned to use pre-embroidered trim cut from a vintage sari. She was a famous defender of Aesthetic Movement ideals, … Her desire to create a gown for Lady Macbeth that would have a shimmering, serpent like appearance led … The solution was clear - to freeze each costume in order to kill the larva and eggs, but how to go about this? The links are just too big and they look costume-y, which I was trying to avoid (at least, as much as one can while wearing a giant wig and a dress sewn with shiny green beetlewings). If I were doing this again I would move the curved seam to the top of the sleeve, relying on the crochet lace and beetlewings to disguise the seamline, historical accuracy be damned. Faced with the prospect of an attack on these most precious items we consulted our area conservator, Gill Nason, and our textile consultant, Zenzie Tinker; Zenzie has recently been responsible for the conservation of the famous Beetle wing dress worn by Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth in 1888. We then vacuum packed them in polythene. 1830s Butter Yellow Day Dress, Part IV: Skirt. To save on cost, definitely buy them in bulk on Ebay from Thailand instead of trying to buy them in the U.S. And since you’ll have to drill extra holes in them yourself anyway and trim them to size, you may as well get them undrilled rather than spending the money on predrilled wings. I’d originally planned on attaching the skirt directly to a separate waistband at the natural waist, to let the weight of the skirt rest there rather than dragging down the bodice. I lined the dress with cotton crinkle gauze because I wanted it to have some stretch to allow me to fit the bodice snugly without needing boning. I left plenty of room at the bottom, though, to ensure that I’d be able to stitch it to the dress with no pulling. In retrospect I think my fabric was just a bit heavy, but since my best alternative was much too light it was the best I could get. Well, the restored dress is now on display at Ellen’s former home, Smallhythe Place, and last weekend we paid a visit… Once I let down the upper section of hair and gathered the whole thing into a ponytail, the glued sections weren’t really visible except as a slightly thicker section of hair. Most sources online agreed that beetlewings are too brittle to trim without steaming them first to soften them, so I was all set to start the steaming process…  But I decided on a whim to skip the steaming and see if a pair of regular nail clippers would do the trick. Taking a break from construction, it was time to get started on the most distinctive feature of the costume– the beetlewings! I think I’ll probably go through most if not all of my original 1,000 wings in finishing the back skirt panel, so once that’s done I’ll open up the second 1,000 and start clipping them to the smaller size so I can get to work on the bodice. I don’t know if Ellen Terry really had almost floor-length hair when she played Lady Macbeth or if she wore a wig, but it’s a prominent feature of her costume in … elytra). So I went with my last option, which was to find a reasonably decent-looking crown online and go with it. Beetlewings: All the write-ups of the original dress say that it used “1,000 beetlewings,” like that’s some sort of huge number. I may even, as I mentioned in my belt post, re-do the belt someday to make the links smaller the way they are in real life. I glued the longer weft across the hair about 8″ up from the ends, then glued the dense skullcap section on top of that a few inches down. The dress has a narrow border of Celtic designs worked out in red and white stones, is hemmed on all the edges, and girt with a gold belt. And I’m considering getting some gold foil to glue over the links for a “real metal” look, rather than paint. 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