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.