Unravelled women
Two women. Two stories of madness. Two pieces of textile.
I quite like the word madness. Mental illness is the correct term now, and it better fits how we think of the mind. Yes we have mental illnesses (and we all do, to some extent), but we can strive to some level of mental wellness. How well we can be depends, like physical wellness, on circumstances. Some people have a weak heart. Some people live in a place with unhealthy air. Equally some people have a brain chemistry that is not always being helpful. Some people live in a toxic family, or under extreme stress.
Mary Abell and Lorina Bulwer were not considered mentally ill. They were mad. Lorina was a lunatic, Mary was melancholic.
I met Mary, in my imagination at least, last Saturday. I was looking at her underwear. A few days later @womensart1 tweeted a photo of some needlework and I met Lorina. These two women, born almost 200 years apart in very different circumstances have two things in common — their gender and their madness. The third is that they live on in fabric.
Mary Abell’s stays
I was at a School of Historical Dress event, and I was immediately drawn to one garment in particular. It was a pair of maternity stays, a copy of a pair which were almost certainly owned by Mary Varney, nee Abell. These were from the Verney collection…
