Alice was my great great grandmother and lived in the late 1800's/early 1900's. This photo has a bit of a story behind it. From what I can gather, Alice was to attend a fancy dress ball in the town where she lived and at which there was a competition for best costume. Not being particularly well off and wanting to have a bit of fun with the costume, she made her dress entirely from layers of paper and even made decorations for her bulldog. When she arrived at the ball she was very embarrassed by her outfit after comparing it to the other women there who had professionally made dresses made from expensive fabrics and lace and so she went home. Later people came to tell her that she had in fact won best costume and this is the photograph that was taken of her. I haven't seen any other photos of her but I find her fascinating. A love of paper, creativity and craft seems like it might be a bit of a constant in my heritage. I like your outfit Alice!
16 commentz:
That's impressive! I could never do something like that!
You are so lucky to have the back-story to such a great photo.
that is really cool! I would never have imagined that someone who is from that era would look like that! It honestly looks like a collage somebody has done! I love it!
Amazing! Love her dog too :)
That's amazing!! Fabulous story and photo, how wonderful to have something like that in your family.
Hmmm, inspired to go and dress up our [french] bulldog...
BTW FYI ...Alice's costume theme is "Brittania"
What a wonderful photo and story to have!
what a coinkydink! i figured i need to save for SOMETHING or i'm just going to keep spending, and i've never travelled anywhere. i was thinking going solo, although i want to do like july-november maybe, so that could get pretty lonely.
when are you going? and where are you planning to visit?
and when will we have an aus blog meet up in the states?
Oh wow! I admire her spirit and creativity! Clearly it runs in the family:)
that is so unbelievably cool.
the doggy kills me.
you actually look a lot like her..
great find!
i love finding family photos with cool stories - I found a photo taken of my great uncle, taken by Irving Penn for Vogue! i was amazed!! Alice looks beautiful, I'm glad she won
xxx
Wow that is such a cool family story! I welled up reading it. I love that you are obviously continuing her legacy with your creativity & originality!
The really neat part about having an old photogrpah like this, is knowing that this is YOUR heritage. Too many people grow up hardly knowing their Grand Parents, let alone ever hearing about their Great Grand Parents!
I think she's fantastic :)
Wonderful! And lovely to know, that your creativity comes already from this far!
Alice sounds so awesome. I would have so wanted to be her friend.
That's a great story! And indeed a great lesson!
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