Alice Vansittart Comyns Carr (née Strettell; 1 January 1850 – 11 October 1927), was a British

costume designer A costume designer is a person who designs costumes for a film, stage production or television show. The role of the costume designer is to create the characters' outfits or costumes and balance the scenes with texture and colour, etc. The costum ...

for theatre, whose work is associated with the Aesthetic dress movement.

Early life and family

Alice Laura Vansittart Strettell was born on 1 January 1850 in

Genoa Genoa ( ; ; ) is a city in and the capital of the Italian region of Liguria, and the sixth-largest city in Italy. As of 2025, 563,947 people live within the city's administrative limits. While its metropolitan city has 818,651 inhabitan ...

to Laura (née Vansittart Neale) and the Reverend Alfred Baker Strettell, the British consular chaplain in

, Italy between 1851 and 1874. Her father later became the rector of St. Martin's Church in Canterbury. Her sister,

Alma Strettell Alma Gertrude Vansittart Harrison (; 1853–1939) was a British translator and poet known for her translations of folk songs, folk tales, and poems from Greek, Romanian, French, Provençal, German, Norwegian, and other languages. Early life an ...

, was a writer and translator, her maternal uncle was Edward Vansittart Neale, a leader in the

Christian Socialist A Christian () is a person who follows or adheres to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. Christians form the largest religious community in the world. The words ''Christ'' and ''Chr ...

movement. As a young girl, Strettell was sent to Britain to be educated in a school in

Brighton Brighton ( ) is a seaside resort in the city status in the United Kingdom, city of Brighton and Hove, East Sussex, England, south of London. Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates back to the Bronze Age Britain, Bronze Age, R ...

, which she hated. She spent some holidays with her grandmother and an aunt in Cheltenham who she later described as "deliciously worldly-minded". In 1873, Alice married

J. Comyns Carr Joseph William Comyns Carr (1 March 1849 – 12 December 1916), often referred to as J. Comyns Carr, was an English drama and art critic, gallery director, author, poet, playwright and theatre manager. Beginning his career as an art critic, Car ...

, a drama and art critic, author, playwright and director of the

Grosvenor Gallery The Grosvenor Gallery was an art gallery in London founded in 1877 by Sir Coutts Lindsay and his wife Blanche. Its first directors were J. Comyns Carr and Charles Hallé. The gallery proved crucial to the Aesthetic Movement because it provid ...

. They had three children: Philip, Dorothy, and

Arthur Arthur is a masculine given name of uncertain etymology. Its popularity derives from it being the name of the legendary hero King Arthur. A common spelling variant used in many Slavic, Romance, and Germanic languages is Artur. In Spanish and Ital ...

, who became a Member of Parliament.

Career

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. It was rumored that she was the inspiration behind the comic figure of "Mrs Cimabue Brown" that the cartoonist

George du Maurier George Louis Palmella Busson du Maurier (6 March 1834 – 8 October 1896) was a Franco-British cartoonist and writer known for work in ''Punch (magazine), Punch'' and a Gothic fiction, Gothic novel ''Trilby (novel), Trilby'', featuring the char ...

invented to mock the Aestheticists in some of his drawings for '' Punch'' magazine. For two decades, Carr was actor

Ellen Terry Dame Alice Ellen Terry (27 February 184721 July 1928) was a leading English actress of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Born into a family of actors, Terry began performing as a child, acting in Shakespeare plays in London, and toured ...

's chief costume designer, succeeding Patience Harris. 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 Henry VIII (28 June 149128 January 1547) was King of England from 22 April 1509 until his death in 1547. Henry is known for his Wives of Henry VIII, six marriages and his efforts to have his first marriage (to Catherine of Aragon) annulled. ...

'' and ''The Amber Heart''. 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 Faust ( , ) is the protagonist of a classic German folklore, German legend based on the historical Johann Georg Faust (). The erudite Faust is highly successful yet dissatisfied with his life, which leads him to make a deal with the Devil at a ...

''. Carr and Terry continued working together until 1902, when Terry left the Lyceum Theatre. One of Carr's best-known works is a costume that used beetle wings to create an iridescent effect worn by Terry as

Lady Macbeth Lady Macbeth is a leading character in William Shakespeare's tragedy ''Macbeth'' (). As the wife of the play's tragic hero, Macbeth (a Scottish nobleman), Lady Macbeth goads her husband into committing regicide, after which she becomes quee ...

in the

Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 23 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's natio ...

play ''

Macbeth ''The Tragedy of Macbeth'', often shortened to ''Macbeth'' (), is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, estimated to have been first performed in 1606. It dramatises the physically violent and damaging psychological effects of political ambiti ...

''. 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. Nettleship had used beetle wings in some of her earlier designs, and this dress employed over 1,000 beetle wings. The restored costume is now on display in Terry's home,

Smallhythe Place Smallhythe Place in Small Hythe, near Tenterden in Kent, is a Timber framing, half-timbered house built in the late 15th or early 16th century and since 1947 cared for by the National Trust. It was the home of the Victorian era, Victorian actr ...

, near

Tenterden Tenterden is a town and civil parish in the Borough of Ashford in Kent, England. The 2021 census published the population of the parish to be 8,186. Geography Tenterden is connected to Kent's county town of Maidstone by the A262 road an ...

in Kent. The American artist

John Singer Sargent John Singer Sargent (; January 12, 1856 – April 15, 1925) was an American expatriate artist, considered the "leading portrait painter of his generation" for his evocations of Edwardian era, Edwardian-era luxury. He created roughly 900 oil ...

painted Terry in the dress in 1889. Sargent was a friend of Carr and painted her portrait around the same time. Carr later collaborated with Nettleship to make another dress for Terry, this time for a production of ''Henry VIII''. In 1895, she collaborated with the artist

Edward Burne-Jones Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, 1st Baronet, (; 28 August 183317 June 1898) was an English painter and designer associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood's style and subject matter. Burne-Jones worked with William Morris as a founding part ...

on costumes for a production of the play ''King Arthur'' starring

Henry Irving Sir Henry Irving (6 February 1838 – 13 October 1905), christened John Henry Brodribb, sometimes known as J. H. Irving, was an English stage actor in the Victorian era, known as an actor-manager because he took complete responsibility ( ...

Writings

Carr wrote an analysis of fashion for ''

The Woman's World ''The Woman's World'' was a Victorian women's magazine published by Orion Publishing Group, Cassell between 1886 and 1890, edited by Oscar Wilde between 1887 and 1889, and by Ella Hepworth Dixon from 1888.. Foundation In the late nineteenth ce ...

'' magazine after

Oscar Wilde Oscar Fingal O'Fflahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 185430 November 1900) was an Irish author, poet, and playwright. After writing in different literary styles throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular and influential playwright ...

took over the editorship in 1887. 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." Carr also wrote several books, including ''North Italian Folk: Sketches of Town and Country Life'' (1878), ''Margaret Maliphant'' (1889), and ''The Arm of the Lord'' (1899). Alice Comyns Carr died on 11 October 1927 at her home in Hampstead and was buried in

Highgate Cemetery Highgate Cemetery is a place of burial in North London, England, designed by architect Stephen Geary. There are approximately 170,000 people buried in around 53,000 graves across the West and East sides. Highgate Cemetery is notable both for so ...

References

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