Creativity Friday: Inspiring a Novel*, part 3 ~ and book giveaway winner!

First off, congratulations to Robyn Crosa! She’s won Stephanie Cowell’s CLAUDE & CAMILLE book giveaway. I’ve contacted you by e-mail with instructions on how to claim it. If you don’t receive the e-mail, please leave me a comment on this post. (If you haven’t read my interview with Stephanie yet, you can do so here. It’s especially filled with wonderful inspiration for writers.)

On a related note, we have other author events coming up online and at the gallery. Journalist Sharon Lerner (THE WAR ON MOMS) will visit the gallery June 4th for the next installation of our Authors at the Gallery series. Don’t live in the NYC area? This event will be livestreamed and archived. In July, we’ll have a blog interview and book giveaway with Catherine Delors, author of the upcoming novel FOR THE KING which is already garnering rave reviews. I’m really looking forward to hosting Sharon and Catherine.

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As I mentioned in my previous post, The Novel now has a title, THE LILY MAID. Since it’s set in 1880’s Victorian England during the Aesthetics Movement, I’m having a lot of fun describing the clothes. How did Aesthetic (also known as Artistic) dress differ from the rest of Victorian society? Think of an upholstered sofa and the many permutations they can take on.

You can have this:

Or this:

Now translate these into women’s clothing. Here’s the typical 1880’s Victorian woman’s silhouette, complete with bustle and corset:

And her Aesthetic dress companion:

Costume photographs © Victoria and Albert Museum.

Note the lack of corsets and stays, the loose hair. Imagine how freeing — and transgressive — this must have felt to ladies of that era! They could breathe and move! In many ways Aesthetic clothing was a predecessor to the Rational Dress Society, though the two movements do overlap in time. Interestingly, another inspiration for Aesthetic dress was the Italian Renaissance, which also fed the imagery of the Pre-Raphaelites. Note the high waistline, the drape of the sleeve.

In Victorian England, the foremost purveyors of Aesthetic-style clothing was Liberty & Co, now still in business as Liberty of London. I was deeply amused to recently come across ready-to-wear Liberty of London dresses at Target; I immediately snapped up two of them so I could dress in character as I write. How could I resist?

Here’s a description of Aesthetic dress from THE LILY MAID:

[The gowns] were all cut in the loose, quasi-medieval Aesthetic manner without stays or bustle, like many of the clothes I’d gaped at from afar at Liberty & Co. They were a revelation; I felt as though I could breathe and move unconstrained. Two were decorated with embroidery, mainly of a floral nature. Another bore beading around the necklines and elaborately smocked cuffs. As I viewed myself in the mirror, I felt transformed into another milieu, another class. I felt strange and was mildly embarrassed at my display – I looked more akin to those peacock feathers she kept in a vase than myself.

…. Several ladies ceased their conversation to stare at us. We stared back. Compared to myself and Nessa’s aesthetic-style dress, these women looked like upholstered sofas, tucked and draped and padded from their generous bustles to leg o’ mutton sleeves.”

Next weekend, I’ll be off on a writer’s retreat in an attempt to tie up the remainder of THE LILY MAID’s first draft. I don’t know how successful I’ll be, but I’m excited to try. Wish me luck!

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* This is part of an ongoing occasional series of posts about inspiration for the two books I’m working on right now. The first is THE LILY MAID, a novel. The second book is a nonfiction follow up to DOOMED QUEENS. Read previous posts here, here, and here.

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