Coward Gallery

Private Lives, fashion on stage, Gertrude Lawrence

Article by Florence Roberts in The Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News reporting on the fashions on stage (and in the stalls) during Noel Coward's play, Private Lives at the Phoenix Theatre. The photograph shows the star of the show, Gertrude Lawrence reaching for a cigarette in a scene from the play, wearing a dress by Edward Molyneux. Molyneux and Lawrence would have a long-standing creative collaboration.
1930

© Illustrated London News Ltd/Mary Evans

Miss Sketch keeps a Diary - First Night of Le Bonheur

Page from The Sketch reporting on the first night of the Charles Boyer film, Le Bonheur at the Curzon cinema. Guests include Mr and Mrs Anthony Acton, Sir Michael and Lady Pamela Berry (nee Smith), Lady Mairi Stewart, Viscount Errington, Virginia Gilliat, Lady Elizabeth Paget and Herr von Hoffmanstahl. The final picture, bottom right, shows Noel Coward (far right) with MPs. Mr J. P. L. Thomas, Robert Boothby and Ronald Cartland. Bob Boothby would later become a prominent figure in trying to decriminalise homosexuality. Date: 1938

© Illustrated London News Ltd/Mary Evans

Noel Coward in drag - playing lead in Cambridge Footlights

Some of the dresses worn by the leading lady of the Cambridge University Footlights Dramatic Club which was staging Folly at the Strand Theatre in June 1923. The actress is none other than Mr N. B. Hartnell - Norman Bishop Hartnell, British fashion designer and royal couturier (1901-1979), who, The Bystander notes, as "Gwendolen Bentley" wore the gowns here depicted with amazing "feminine" charm. It does not specify whether Hartnell designed the dresses himself. Date: 1923

© Illustrated London News Ltd/Mary Evans