Trousseau for Duke’s Bride

Hawera Star, Volume LIV, 7 November 1935, Page 9

Trousseau for Duke’s Bride

Colour Test at the Abbey

(From Our Own Correspondent—By Air Mall.) LONDON, Oct. 12.

Four hundred girls are helping to make Lady Alice Scott’s trousseau for her wedding to the Duke of Gloucester at Westminster November 6. Some have sewn a fine seam; others an inch of embroidery. Several have only been allowed to take out the ticking stitches or run out matching silks and cottons. But each, whatever her job, has pulled a hair from her own head and secretly stitched it into the garment on which she is working. This is an ancient Scottish superstition, to assure happiness and good fortune for the bride.

When the coveted order for the trousseau was received by Mr Noilman Hartnell, the young English dress designer, his workers appealed to him in a body, and asked that each might have a share, however small, in the making of the lovely things for Lady Alice.

So the work has been divided among the various rooms—tailors, fitters, embroiderer's, and milliners, to give each gild some small part in it. The material for the wedding dress, a specially tinted satin, has been designed by Lady Alice with Mr Hartnell’s help. It has been made by an English firm. It was Lady Alice’s idea to take a selection of specially-died materials to Westminster Abbey and test them both in a dingy light and in daylight The result is that if the day is foggy (ate was Princess Marina’s wedding day) the dress will look as lovely as it will in bright sunlight. “Sweet and charming” are the saleswomen’s description of the bride. It is delightful to work with her,” says one, “because, being an artist, slto knows so much about colour.”