Alice Comyns Carr

{{Short description|British costume designer (1850–1927)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}} {{Infobox person | name = Alice Comyns Carr | image = File:Mrs. J. W. Comyns Carr.jpg | caption = Mrs. J. W. Comyns Carr by John Singer Sargent c. 1889 | birth_name = Alice Laura Vansittart Strettell | birth_date = 1 January 1850 | death_date = {{Death date and age|1927|10|11|1850|01|01}} | occupation = Costume designer }}

'''Alice Vansittart Comyns Carr''' (née '''Strettell'''; 1 January 1850 – 11 October 1927), was a British costume designer for theatre, whose work is associated with the Aesthetic dress movement.<ref name=":1">{{Cite web |title=Carr [née Strettell], Alice Laura Vansittart Comyns (1850–1927), costume designer and writer |url=https://www.oxforddnb.com/display/10.1093/odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-90000382514 |access-date=2024-08-03 |website=Oxford Dictionary of National Biography |date=2023 |language=en |doi=10.1093/odnb/9780198614128.013.90000382514 |last1=Isaac |first1=Veronica |isbn=978-0-19-861412-8 }}</ref>

==Early life and family== Alice Laura Vansittart Strettell was born on 1 January 1850 in Genoa to Laura (née Vansittart Neale) and the Reverend Alfred Baker Strettell, the British consular chaplain in Genoa, Italy between 1851 and 1874. Her father later became the rector of St. Martin's Church in Canterbury. Her sister, Alma Strettell, was a writer and translator,<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |last=Houston |first=Natalie M. |title=Alma Strettell (1853 – 1939) |url=https://1890s.ca/strettell_bio/ |access-date=2024-08-03 |website=Yellow Nineties 2.0 |language=en-US}}</ref> her maternal uncle was Edward Vansittart Neale, a leader in the Christian Socialist movement.<ref name=":1" /> As a young girl, Strettell was sent to Britain to be educated in a school in Brighton, which she hated. She spent some holidays with her grandmother and an aunt in Cheltenham who she later described as "deliciously worldly-minded".<ref name=":1" />

In 1873, Alice married J. Comyns Carr, a drama and art critic, author, playwright and director of the Grosvenor Gallery. They had three children: Philip, Dorothy, and Arthur, who became a Member of Parliament.<ref name=esposito/><ref>{{Cite ODNB |title=Carr, Sir Arthur Strettell Comyns (1882–1965), barrister and politician |url=https://www.oxforddnb.com/display/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-61800 |access-date=2024-08-03 |date=2004 |language=en |doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/61800 |last1=Pottle |first1=Mark |isbn=978-0-19-861412-8 }}</ref>

==Career== [[File:Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth.jpg|thumb|''Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth'', by John Singer Sargent, 1889. Terry is wearing the Carr-Nettleship iridescent dress.]] As a costume designer, Carr was associated with the Aesthetic dress movement and its championship of looser, more flowing garments with theatrical touches such as lace and embroidery.<ref name=":0" /> It was rumored that she was the inspiration behind the comic figure of "Mrs Cimabue Brown" that the cartoonist George du Maurier invented to mock the Aestheticists in some of his drawings for ''Punch'' magazine.<ref name=":0" />

For two decades, Carr was actor Ellen Terry's chief costume designer, succeeding Patience Harris.<ref name=vam/> Carr began consulting with Terry and Harris in 1882, but the two designers' tastes didn't align well, and Harris resigned in 1887 following disagreements over costumes for the plays ''Henry VIII'' and ''The Amber Heart''.<ref name=isaac/>{{rp|304–307}} The latter became the first production on which Carr had primary responsibility for Terry's costumes, though her influence is clear in designs as early as the 1885 production of ''Faust''.<ref name=isaac/>{{rp|304}} Carr and Terry continued working together until 1902, when Terry left the Lyceum Theatre.<ref name=isaac/>{{rp|304}}

One of Carr's best-known works is a costume that used beetle wings to create an iridescent effect<ref name="ph2011" /> worn by Terry as Lady Macbeth in the Shakespeare play ''Macbeth''.<ref name="hill" /> It was designed by Carr and crocheted by dressmaker Ada Nettleship to simulate a soft chain mail with also something of an effect of serpent scales.<ref name="isaac" />{{rp|324}}<ref name="cc1926" /> Nettleship had used beetle wings in some of her earlier designs, and this dress employed over 1,000 beetle wings.<ref name="sparke" /><ref name="cc1926" /> The restored costume is now on display in Terry's home, Smallhythe Place, near Tenterden in Kent.<ref name="ph2011" /> The American artist John Singer Sargent painted Terry in the dress in 1889.<ref name="hill" /> Sargent was a friend of Carr and painted her portrait around the same time.<ref name="bristow" />

Carr later collaborated with Nettleship to make another dress for Terry, this time for a production of ''Henry VIII''.<ref name=sparke/> In 1895, she collaborated with the artist Edward Burne-Jones on costumes for a production of the play ''King Arthur'' starring Henry Irving.<ref name=isaac/>{{rp|312–13}}<ref name=fortunato/>

== Writings == Carr wrote an analysis of fashion for ''The Woman's World'' magazine after Oscar Wilde took over the editorship in 1887.<ref name=fortunato/><ref name=bristow/> Carr published a volume of reminiscences in 1926. In it, she wrote, "I had long been accustomed to supporting a certain amount of ridicule in the matter of clothes, because in the days when bustles and skin-tight dresses were the fashion, and a twenty-inch waist the aim of every self-respecting woman, my frocks followed the simple, straight line as waistless as those of today."<ref name=cc1926/>

Carr also wrote several books, including ''North Italian Folk: Sketches of Town and Country Life'' (1878),<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KLXWAAAAMAAJ&pg=PP1|title=North Italian Folk: Sketches from Town and Country Life|last1=Carr|first1=Alice Vansittart Strettel|year=1878}}</ref> ''Margaret Maliphant'' (1889),<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/008721426|title = Margaret Maliphant: A novel by MRS Comyns Carr .. In three volumes. 1|year = 1889}}</ref> and ''The Arm of the Lord'' (1899).<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=flMOAAAAIAAJ&q=the+arm+of+the+lord+carr&pg=PP19|title = The Arm of the Lord|last1 = Comyns Carr|first1 = Mrs|year = 1899}}</ref>

Alice Comyns Carr died on 11 October 1927 at her home in Hampstead and was buried in Highgate Cemetery.<ref name=":1" />

==References== {{reflist |30em| refs=

<ref name=isaac>Isaac, Veronica Tetley. [http://eprints.brighton.ac.uk/16612/1/Binder1.pdf "'Dressing the Part': Ellen Terry (1847-1928)"]. PhD dissertation, University of Brighton, 2016.</ref>

<ref name=fortunato>Fortunato, Paul. [https://books.google.com/books?id=EZbbAAAAQBAJ&dq=Alice+Comyns+Carr&pg=PT15 ''Modernist Aesthetics and Consumer Culture in the Writings of Oscar Wilde'']</ref>

<ref name=bristow>Bristow, Joseph, ed. [https://books.google.com/books?id=bWRZAgAAQBAJ&dq=Alice+Comyns+Carr&pg=PT181 ''Wilde Discoveries: Traditions, Histories, Archives''] </ref>

<ref name=esposito>Esposito, Anthony. "Carr, Joseph William Comyns (1849–1916)". ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography''. Oxford University Press, 2004. (Subscription required).</ref>

<ref name=cc1926>Comyns Carr, Mrs. J. (Alice Comyns Carr). ''Mrs. J. Comyns Carr's 'Reminiscences' ''. London: Hutchinson, 1926.</ref>

<ref name=vam>[https://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/t/the-actor-and-the-maker-ellen-terry-and-alice-comyns-carr/ "The Actor and the Maker: Ellen Terry and Alice Comyns-Carr"]. Victoria and Albert Museum website.</ref>

<ref name=hill>Hill, Rosemary. [https://www.lrb.co.uk/v39/n13/rosemary-hill/ones-self-washed-drawers "One’s Self-Washed Drawers"]. ''London Review of Books'' 39:13 (29 June 2017).</ref>

<ref name=sparke>Sparke, Penny, and Fiona Fisher, eds. ''The Routledge Companion to Design Studies'', p. 90.</ref>

<ref name=ph2011>{{Cite web |url=https://pasthorizons.com/index.php/archives/03/2011/the-archaeology-of-a-dress |title=The archaeology of a dress |date=2011-03-29 |access-date=2022-07-31 |website=Past Horizons |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110401185613/https://pasthorizons.com/index.php/archives/03/2011/the-archaeology-of-a-dress |archive-date=2011-04-01 }}</ref> }}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Carr, Alice Vansittart Comyns}} Category:1850 births Category:1927 deaths Category:British costume designers Category:19th-century British women writers Category:19th-century British writers Category:19th-century English women writers Category:20th-century English women Category:Burials at Highgate Cemetery Category:British women costume designers