The tale of India’s most controversial dress: The Peacock Gown

The Peacock Dress tells us the tale of India’s colonial past and belonged to Mary Curzon, the wife of George Curzon, who was the Viceroy of India. She wore this stunning attire at a ball in Delhi on January 6, 1903, to mark the coronation of King Edward VII as the Emperor of India. This beautiful and lavish event was full of royal grace and was organised to impress Indian dignitaries and royals while underlining the power and emergence of the Britishers in India.

The design of the dress not just described fashion but also dictated politics. Made from the traditional fabric worn by only the Mughal court rulers, it had the motif of a peacock feather which is a Hindu symbol and is associated with Lord Krishna and Goddess Saraswati. However, the creation of the dress was a subtle intention to present the reign of the Britishers in India while aligning with the Indian courts stating being a dominant fact.

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The dress was wrapped with gold and silver zardozi embroidery and had green beetle wing covers on the silk taffeta with a fine line of Indian cotton muslin. The embroidery was done at the workshop of Kishan Chand in India and then was sent to the French haute couture designers ‘House of Worth’ in Paris to be made into a beautiful gown, and took two years to start from scratch. It was finally designed by Jean-Philippe Worth in Paris.

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The main motive of the dress was to showcase the power of the Britishers in the Indian darbars. As Lady Mary Curzon’s husband became the Viceroy, she was the Vicereine of India. Her life revolved around a calendar of social events staged to symbolise the authority of the British Empire in India. Despite being ill at times, she often faced scrutiny which was reported by the press. But, she had a keen interest in fashion which made her the ideal choice, and was known for her preference of combining Indian textiles with European fashion sense.

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In the mid-2000s, a white woman in England, Cathy Hay fell in love with this gown and started working to recreate it for herself. She studied the art of zardozi and all about the gold wire embroidery technique which was used by the original Indian artisans and worked on the project for a few years, until in 2011 she gave up the project, but later she met another white woman interested in creating the same attire with her. It’s been 20 years since the duo left the project in motion, making it an impossible task for them because of its intricate details and designs.

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The dress is preserved together with the Logsdail portrait and is at the Kedleston Hall in England. It is a neo-classical manor house owned by the National Trust, and seat of the Curzon family, which is located near Derbyshire.

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