Vogue 1905

In December of 1905 an article about the stage work of Julian Mitchell was published in Vogue magazine; the issue can be viewed on the Internet Archive. Wonderland was playing on Broadway at the time, and various aspects of that show were mentioned and illustrated in a double page spread. Caroline Siedle was featured, as the costume designer for the show; unfortunately the portion of the article describing her work was continued on another page, and I’ve been unable to find the remainder of the article!

The portion that is there does mention a detail of her work process that I haven’t run across before; the creation of paper dolls of the characters, to help visualize costume groups on the stage: 

 

Caroline Siedle

Costume Designing  

The process of designing costumes is highly interesting. To the designer, the stage director states what he wants in color effect, what the characters are, and what the situations. Mrs. Siedle takes these suggestions and then gleans as much information as she can about the dialogue and plot, her work being usually in advance of the completion of the manuscript. She cuts out small paper dolls corresponding in number to the number of persons requiring a particular costume. In this way one may fancy her with a row of ten paper doll revolutionists, ten shepherdesses, and ten Father William's Sons. These rows of paper dolls give her an ocular idea of quantities, color masses, and groupings. She

 

(Continued on page v) 

 

And unfortunately, there it ends! 

Wonderland began life as Alice and the Eight Princesses, an unlikely mashup of Lewis Carroll’s Alice books and The Twelve Dancing Princesses by the Brothers Grimm. The show went through many changes, including the dropping of most of the Alice characters, before arriving on Broadway as Wonderland. The book was by Glen MacDonough, with a score by Victor Herbert, the same team responsible for the hit Babes in Toyland. The Museum of the City of New York has a Siedle design from this show for the characters Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee, shown on the right.

The article includes a number of small black & white drawings of various costumes, and an intriguing image of a transformation scene, with a lengthy description of how the effect was achieved. 

 

Anyone with more interest in this particular show can find further information in several forum posts on lostmediawiki, including a color image of the same transformation scene featured in the Vogue article.

An Interview With Caroline - 1896

 Another interview with Caroline Siedle was published in the New York Journal, on May 1st, 1896. This covers some of the same information as her 1895 interview, but there are also some additional details about her working process. Incidentally, the portrait engraving of the artist used here is far more flattering than the earlier one.

The carrying out of a series of distinct color schemes in the staging of a comic opera is a comparatively new departure. The success, however, of the venture in the recent production of "El Capitan" at the Broadway Theatre has proved that the public eye is capable of appreciating an ever-changing symphony of delicately undulated color quite as much as the time honored custom of adorning groups of young iwomen in the seven primary hues.

Mrs. Edward Siedle, who designed the costumes for "El Capitan", is really the originator of the idea of staging an opera so that each set is a separate, beautiful tone picture, and not a disconnected rainbow. Mrs. Siedle is an Englishwoman, hence she insists upon living in the country, where the coming of spring is indicated by something besides shirt waists and white sailors. 

In speaking of her work, Mrs. Siedle said; "I always design the chorus costumes first, as they furnish the real picture for the audience. The costume of the star may be more elaborate, but it must only reproduce the color tone given by the chorus. Of course, variety can be furnished in the principle sketches by the introduction of gold, silver, black, brown and white, and in the use of richer materials. And I can usually control these matters, because I not only make the water-color sketches but select the materials to be used in the costumes and am also expected to see that the costumer makes no mistake in carrying out my ideas.

"Before beginning my sketches I usually study and read for several days, and when I have the country and period in which the opera is to be produced well in mind I shut my books and open my imagination, for realism and comic opera do not go hand in hand. A certain style and period of dress can be suggested, but beyond that there must always be considered the question of color schemes, harmonious effects and lights. No amount of study will reveal to us a Peruvian maiden going forth to war in pale green tights. Such a result can only be gained from a vivid imagination familiar with operatic license."

Mrs. Siedle laughed when asked what hours she reserved for working.

"Always, always I am working," she answered; "often until late at night, for it is quite safe to paint at night when the colors are to be used in artificial light. I really have not known the time when I could say 'I have nothing to do' since I began this line of work three years ago."

Mrs. Siedle's preparation for her present work was a thorough art course at the South Kensington School, in England. When she first came to this country she gave her attention to painting tapestries and illustrating magazine stories for Harper's and St Nicholas. The tapestries representing some of Raphael's cartoons which were used in the production of "Judah," at Palmer's Theatre, were done byMrs. Siedle. Her attention was first turned to her present line of work through the advice of her husband, who is property manager of the Metropolitan Opera House.

Mrs. Siedle is a "home maker" as well as a professional woman. Her pretty house on the Hudson has the air of being managed by a model housekeeper, and her bright-faced ten-year-old boy, "Teddy," responds to a maternal command with a cheerful alacrity that indicates love of obedience as well as of fun. 

And a brief article from The Dakota Chief, July 2nd 1896:

Designs Costumes for Opera

Edward Siedle is property manager for the Metropolitan Opera House, New York. When getting together costumes for a presentation some time ago he found himself much at a loss to harmonize certain colors and - partly in joke, partly in earnest - asked his wife's advice about the matter. Much to his surprise she almost immediately pointed a way out of the difficulty. Her marked ability in this line suggested the idea to him that Mrs. Siedle would doubtless be successful in staging costume plays or operas. She turned her attention to the work and now is regarded as most successful. She has staged numerous first-class productions, her original idea being to carry out a series of distinct color schemes. In this she has conspicuously succeeded, making of each set a separate tone picture. Mrs. Siedle's preparation for her present work was a thorough art course at the South Kensington school in London.

An Interview with Caroline - 1895

Caroline Siedle was interviewed on several occasions for various newspapers. The novelty of her work made for a good human interest story, or a subject for the women's pages of the press. 

 

The following article by an unknown author is transcribed from The Washington Times, Sunday April 21, 1895, and provides a good deal of interesting information about her work. I’ve used several excerpts from this interview throughout my blog, but here is the complete article. As often happens, her name is misspelled as Seidle rather than Siedle:

 

 

Up on a level with the flies of the Metropolitan Opera House are the property workshops, with their atmosphere of paint and papier mache. In one corner, half hidden by an immense dragon's head, and wielding a brush with which she was adorning the sleigh of La Perichole, the Grand Duchess, was a woman painting chubby cherubs.

 

Mrs. Edward Seidle has developed a genius for designing comic opera bouffe and character opera costumes, and is taking a leading place where men have hitherto reigned supreme. As soon as women artists learn about Mrs. Seidle others will no doubt try to imitate her, but stage costuming has reached such a point that it is an art in itself, for which special knowledge is required, and the very few men who have made permanent successes in it in New York can be counted on one hand. 

 

London artists have been accustomed to getting many American orders, but Mrs. Seidle has kept more than one order in this country in the last year which might otherwise been sent to England. She is English herself. That doesn't need telling in so many words after hearing her invitation to step across the hall into the office of her husband, who is property master of the Metropolitan Opera House, and of all of Mr. Abbey's productions.

 

"Tell you about my work? I don't think there is very much to tell. Simply at one time this winter there were three light operas on New York stages for which I had designed all the costumes, three others playing in large eastern cities, and a number of leading people, men and women, on other New York stages, wearing costumes from my designs. 

 

 

"Of course I enjoy being successful. What woman wouldn't? There was 'Rob Roy'. That was the most difficult thing I have done yet, because, if you know anything about the tartans, you know the Scots never designed them with an eye to stage effects, especially the plaids of the most important clans that figured in the opera. Those plaids were too somber. They didn't light up well on the stage, and, if you would believe it, there was hardly more than one containing white, which is so necessary a color and gives value to all color combinations.

 

"'Prince Ananias' was mine also, and 'Paquita', the Mexican opera. 'Princess Bonnie' was running in Philadelphia and 'Madelaine' in Boston. I am satisfied because it is only about two years since my first attempts with 'The Knickerbockers', and 'The Maid of Plymouth' that followed.

 

"Do I think it is desirable work for women? Certainly; but it requires a special class of knowledge that is not easy for the average art student to secure. I studied in the art school at Kensington, in England, and it happened that from girlhood I designed costumes for leading fashion publications. My father was a leading English wood engraver; one brother is an engineer, also, and another is an artist. When I married Mr. Seidle I became more or less familiar with the stage workings. I found I could work with him, and when there was decorating to do I often used to help him. I am just painting that sleigh now for Lillian Russell in the 'Grand Duchesse'.

 

"In that work I became familiar with the value of various colors on the stage. That is very necessary to costume designers, because a color that in itself might be very effective before the footlights, behind them, in a stage group, would be absolutely fatal to the picture. I'll tell you one thing that always is pleasing: It is to have opera stars follow every item of a design made for them. Miss Russell is such a conscientious person in that way that it is a delight to design for her. In 'The Princess Nicotine' she adhered to the sketch, even to the rose she wore. Yes, the Princess Nicotine hat, which has been the rage here in New York, was part of the design." 

 

 Mr. and Mrs. Seidle have one of the prettiest homes in the theatrical colony at Ludlow, about half an hour's ride from New York City. The house is on the bank of the Hudson and from the droll little studio where Mrs. Seidle works the view is up and down the Hudson and the Palisades for miles. It isn't like other studios, because it is a studio without an easel.

 

The chief article of furniture is a large bookcase filled with costume books for the wild plunges into all ages and countries required by the modern stage.

 

Mrs. Seidle has just finished designs for a Russian opera, 'The Fortune Teller', relics of which are still to be seen in the shape of flimsy tracings hanging to a door. Some are tinted with watercolors, as they were in the finished sketches that have gone in to the costumer, with little samples of colors and materials and trimmings fastened to them. Here is a chorus girl from Lapland, another from Iceland. Here is a costume for Miss Russell, another for a group of four chorus girls and another for twelve. It is a most important part of the business to know how many of each group are to be on the stage at certain times, for the designs must be so arranged that one dress shall not lose its effect because another of less importance is of a color that holds more stage light and attracts the eyes of the audience more quickly. The colors in a stage picture must not swear at each other, and Mrs. Seidle has in her mind all these costumes grouped before the designs are sent out of her hands.

 

As many as forty or fifty different designs are made from one opera usually, and then the men often wear masculine editions of feminine designs.

 

Hanging on the ever useful door are a couple of folded sheets of paper. "That is the way the opera comes to me," says Mrs. Seidle. "Those are the lists of what is wanted. The next one I shall attack is an Egyptian affair. I'll go browsing around through all our books and through libraries until I get into an atmosphere of lotuses and mummies. Then I shall go to work, and if necessary, can get through an opera in three weeks, but a month is better."

 

Anyone who is hunting for a new collection fad might take a hint here. When the designs are completed and sent to the purchaser, every one of them is a little watercolor gem of a figure, and so full of action that often they are preferred to portraits as foundations for the posters of a company. What becomes of all these sketches isn't stated, but if they could be secured they would make an immensely interesting collection. 

 

 

Among the other things in which Mrs. Seidle has had experience is scene painting. When Mr. Seidle was with a former manager in New York, Mrs. Seidle more than once mounted the scaffold and laid on quarts of paint over good canvas, especially for tapestry settings. The Raphael cartoons which E. S. Willard uses in 'Judah' were done by Mrs. Seidle, and Willard happening in one day while she was at work, declared that it was the first time in his experience, either in England or this country, that he had seen a woman scene painting.

 

Mrs. Seidle is decidedly petite, bright, energetic, and a model housekeeper. She is the mother of an interesting small boy, and has both the sympathy and encouragement of her husband, who is decidedly proud of her artistic training and talents. 

 

Miss Kitty Gordon

This is another mystery design; it does provide a clue, but I’m not entirely certain where it leads me. This is a lovely stylish dress with floral decoration, and hat, in Siedle’s classic black and white style. The dress appears to be heavily sequined or beaded. The drawing has remnants of glitter, showing how the finished dress would have sparkled in the stage lights.

The back of the board is covered in notes concerning the construction of the hat, along with a sketch detailing the cut and decoration of the back of the dress. It reads:

 

"The picture hat can be of Malines net, blk, showered with small silver spangles. The edge can have band or broad binding of jet. Crown of silver spangles with ruche of blk net all round . Crown can be round in shape. A fine white agret? (egret) at side & ostrich plume over crown & on hair fastener with shaped rhinestone buckle."

 

Maline is a very fine, soft, gauze-like material originally from Belgium, sometimes used for veiling. It sounds as though this would be a very delicate hat! 

At the bottom of the drawing is the name “Miss Kitty Gordon”. Kitty Gordon was a British actress who arrived on Broadway in 1905 in Veronique, the operetta by Andre Messager. The production was imported from England with its original cast, including Gordon in the role of Agathe, and presumably used the original sets and costumes. 

The credits I’ve seen for Veronique do not list a costume designer, but this was the only Broadway production Gordon was in before Siedle’s death in 1907. Perhaps this costume was designed for that show; but the story was set in Paris in 1840, which doesn’t seem completely compatible with this design.

Kitty Gordon played and toured in this production into 1906, then made a brief foray into vaudeville. In April, 1906, an ad in the newspaper Every Evening (Wilmington, Delaware) lists Kitty Gordon and her Broadway Broilers on the bill at Garrick's Theatre, and a review in the same paper praised the act. However by May of that year, the Washington Times stated she was giving up the act and returning to England. Gordon would return to the USA in a couple years for a longer stay in vaudeville and on Broadway, even venturing into early silent films. The photo on the right from 1907 shows her wearing a somewhat similar dress.

Perhaps this dress was commissioned from Siedle for Gordon’s fling in vaudeville? It’s difficult to say without more visual information.

Newspaper Coverage

It was not unusual for Caroline Siedle to be mentioned in newspaper blurbs about upcoming productions, but on several occasions her costumes were singled out for description and particular notice. A few examples follow - often with misspellings of her name.

From the Jennings Daily Record, December 8, 1902, concerning The Daughter of Hamilcar: 

The most unique feature of the production of Blanche Walsh's new play based on "Salammbo" are the costumes designed by Mrs. Seidle. 

 

The dress which Miss Walsh wears in the first act is composed of several layers of silk gauzes, the outside of which is black, the next two of different shades of blue, and the last of pink. Under this nothing is worn except fleshings. Each gauze is embroidered with poppies and other floral suggestions of the period, the outer gauze being decorated with vari-colored gems surrounded by thousands of gold spangles. 

 

Ten seamstresses were at work on these spangles for two weeks night and day, each separate spangle having to be sewn on by hand with silk thread. The general effect of the costume amounts to a sensation, as the whole scheme of transparencies betrays the natural outlines of the figure with more or less definition according to the varying poses of the actress and the position of the lights thrown on her.

Another descriptive mention can be found in a January 2nd, 1906 review of It Happened in Nordland, from The Evening Star of Washington D.C.; Sadly, I've not seen any images of these particular costumes!

“It Happened in Nordland” is a vehicle constructed to convey (Lew) Fields, several other comedians and comediennes and a galaxy of pretty and talented girls through a kaleidoscopic series of beautiful stage pictures. For instance, a song (sung) by Harry Davenport, entitled “Absinthe Frappe”, is rendered with the assistance of a chorus clad in filmy garments of greenish hue, and employing tiny electric lights of the same shade. And so, for every number there was a change of costume by the very hard-worked, but superbly trained chorus.

A pair of gowns seen in the 1900 production In the Palace of the King merited a full, if somewhat hyperbolic, description in the Jersey City News, November 4, 1901. Photos from the production are from the collection of The Museum of the City of New York: 

The clothes worn by Miss Viola Allen in "The Palace of the King," are of interest to the student of dress and the artist, says Anne Rittenhouse, in the Philadelphia “Press.”

Not a woman in the audience but wonders where she found such costumes and where such needlework was done.

The play is in the time of Phillip II of Spain, and, therefore, brings to the modern playgoer an atmosphere little known.  

Spanish court ladies dressed magnificently in those days. Spain was mighty, and its women showed its wealth in superb brocades, ropes of jewels and magnificent needle work.

It is no easy task to get up such gowns. Mr. Marion Crawford, the author, treated his subject with historical accuracy, and it was only fair to him that the gowns should not transgress any law of the times.

I was very much interested in two gowns especially. These were worn by Miss Allen. One was a mantle, not a gown, but voluminous enough to have served as a room robe. The needlework was so beautiful on these and the work so intricate that I was sure they were not picked up at an hour’s notice.  

Miss Allen was glad to tell of them, and the story of their making will surely interest every woman. 

Mrs. Seidle took hold of the task of getting the star’s gowns as soon as Mr. Crawford’s story was decided on. She went to Madrid for the purpose and there got admission into the famous museum, which holds many wonderful souvenirs of Spain's past greatness. 
Costumes are preserved there that belonged to royalty in the days when the armada was to be feared. 

Mrs. Seidle studied these clothes for weeks. She sketched them also. The white ball costume she copied exactly; this is the one Miss Allen wears when she goes to the ball. And the dark, splendid mantle was also copied after one on exhibition. To hold these in the hands is to know just what skill and care has gone into their making. 

Yards and yards of silver embroidery are on the satin gown. And the mantle, made of a specially woven fabric, is one splendid showing of cloth of gold and gold embroidery. Just such handiwork does the traveler see in the priests’ robes in the rich towns of France and Spain. 

All the clothes worn are marvelous in texture and coloring, but these two pieces are not only splendid but of exceeding interest because they are exact reproductions of famous ones and because of the skilled needlework shown on them.

And one more example, this time for the 1903 production of The Runaways. Caroline Siedle isn't mentioned by name, but the gowns in the story are her creations:

COSTLY GOWNS IN "THE RUNAWAYS"

 

The comic opera queens, the singers who attend Miss Erminie Earle in "The Runaways," include some of the prettiest show girls on the stage. They are ten in number and are one of the features of the song hit, "Susannah of Urbana," in which their gorgeous gowns form the ever-twinkling background for the comedian. These gowns just escape the ground, to give the dancers freedom of action, and are of white silk net spangled with silver and appliqued with black velvet ribbon. The drop skirts are of rich orange silk, and when the girls dance, the color effect is brilliant, especially when a moving picture effect is turned on them by the calcium light. Two million spangles of the lightest weight, known as gelatin spangles, are employed on these gowns, and as each one is attached to a short cord of silver bullion to secure a better effect as the dancers whirl-about, it required three weeks work by a girl to complete the spangles of each gown. Nor was the work finished when the gowns left the costumers. One man is now employed every day in the sewing room at the theater to keep the gowns in repair, as the rapid movements of the dancers send the spangles flying in a shower over the stage every night.

 

Unfortunately, the tinted postcard shown above doesn't give the effect of the orange silk skirts! 

Happyland - 1905 Shepherd and Sphinxus

Here are two male designs by Caroline Siedle for Happyland; a chorus gent and a leading player. Siedle obviously designed for both men and women, but the male costumes tend to be overshadowed by the elaborate gowns created for the ladies.

The chorus design is for 16 shepherds, the whole male chorus, in the second act of the show. The simple toga-style outfit with a fleece tossed over the shoulder leaves no doubt as to their profession, together with a horn, flask and shepherd’s crook. The same chorus gents would appear as soldiers later in the act, so it’s pleasant to see their bucolic side! The rear of the board reads “Chorus men from 31 to 46” (totaling 16), and “cloak golden brown for color”. There appears to be a fair amount of green on the cloak in the drawing, as well as the hat and accessories, so perhaps this was a change of plan on Siedle’s part. 

The other piece is a first act design for Sphinxus, the Royal Secret Keeper. He’s shown with his secret-keeping apparatus - looking very much like an old fashioned telephone. Confiders could speak their secrets into the mouthpiece and keep them secure unless someone - usually Sphinxus himself - decided to listen in. The drawing is labeled “Sphinxus - Act II”, but photos show this as a first act costume.

At some point in time several costumes in this show were redesigned, this being one of them. Here’s the same scene as shown above, with different outfits on Sphinxus and the King. Sylvia’s dress did not change.

I’ve mentioned before that costume designs are often subject to wear and damage; for this show, there seems to have been some sort of water leakage that affected many of the drawings. Most of the designs I've seen from this production have water damage to some degree, some definitely worse than others. This tends to make me think that the damage happened at an earlier date, before the suites of costume designs were broken up and disposed of individually. It’s unfortunate, but at least the drawings themselves do still exist!

Happyland - 1905 Chorus Ladies

This striking design is another by Caroline Siedle for Happyland, the 1905 DeWolf Hopper vehicle. These  dresses were worn by the Reaper Girls, in the opening choruses of the show. The bold use of poppy orange would be a dazzling effect spread over six chorus ladies. 

The drawing is labeled “Reaper Girls Act 1”, and shows the figure with a sheaf of wheat and poppies. The sleeves of her dress are tightly pleated, as is her skirt, mimicking the poppy flowers in her hands. There are remnants of an earlier design for a large hat, which was changed to the simpler hood, a sort of Phrygian cap, seen in the final drawing. On the rear of the board is a two line note, reading “Full orange poppies” above the words “golden corn” which have been crossed out and replaced by “wheat”, and underlined three times.

The Reaper Girls were paired with an equal number of Reaper Boys, also played by women. I have an image of a design that I think is for the Reaper Boys, dressed in brick red, shown below. I’m not certain where this image came from, but there’s a good chance it’s from the Shubert Archive. The reapers performed a sickle dance during the opening numbers of the show, distributing flowers among the chorus of Elysian Maidens on stage. 

 

Here we have an Act II design, this time for two chorus ladies dressed as "Lily Girls - Act II Chorus Ladies". The opening of the second act featured a procession that included pairs of Lily, Rose, Violet, and Mignotte girls. The white gown shading to gold mimics the look of a lily in bloom, complete with leafy tendrils cascading from the shoulders.

This show is a surprising example of Caroline Siedle not receiving credit for her costume designs. It’s unusual to see her overlooked at this date, when demand for her work was at its height. Newspaper articles announcing upcoming productions regularly mentioned when the costumes "are being designed by Mme. Siedle" or "Seidle", or "Seidel", etc...but apparently not in this case.

I’m currently aware of about a dozen designs by Siedle for the show, several of which are backed up by stage photos, but in the program it appears the Eaves Costume Co. was credited for the costumes. Like Dazian’s and E. Castel Bert, Eaves was another costume supplier who created their own designs, but would also build designs by others.