Conservation of Queen Victoria's silk shoes
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 4 ต.ค. 2024
- Here are Queen Victoria’s blue silk boots 🥿 Textile Conservator Rosie Chamberlin meticulously worked on these rare, delicate items to get them ready for display at Kensington Palace for #Victoria200.
Purchased with Art Fund support, with many thanks.
See the shoes at Kensington Palace: bit.ly/Victori...
Read on about Victoria's life: bit.ly/victori...
/ kensingtonpalace
/ historicroyalpalaces
This woman needs to read bedtime stories her voice is so pleasant
Agree!
Imagine her whisper. She'd make a great asmr'ist
I agree completely
Cierto cierto
They look so delicate like they'd get ruined easily yet they're so beautiful
Tobias Wilson they really are not beautiful...
We are all anxious to know what size or equivalent size.
Given her height I'd go with 3 uk. That's my Mum's size. She's a bit taller than Victoria though.
Angel Smith that’s your mum, shoe size varies with person.
I don't know what shoe size she was, but she must have been able to play piano with her toes!
Queen Victoria had nine-inch feet and the shoes are approximately a size 3 or 3½ (I wonder what they would look like next to my size 12?).
It’s amazing how much larger our feet size are now compared to then. The average male size foot during WW2 was a 7 and now the average male foot is a 10.
I’ve sewn since I was 10 and I would LOVE to work in conservation. You’re SO lucky!
*+Stephanie Kelly*
I suggest you contact some of your local theatre companies costume departments.
Thanks! Great suggestion💡
One of the best schools for that is Cooperstown Graduate Studies, SUNY, New York. I believe there are two locations now. My college professor had been a student there under the founders. Students choose to focus on one of two tracks during their time at CGP: ... The Cooperstown Graduate Program, SUNY Oneonta | PO Box
4 | Cooperstown, NY 13326 | 607/547-2586
www.loc.gov/preservation/outreach/tops/buffalo/index.html
Very interesting job!!! Is so incredible how we humans are always trying to conserve the objects from the past, but so little we are beholding the values of those days.....
Yeah.... Like stoning or burning women alive who were believed to be witches without any proof. Those values....
@@ignazs.5816 That wasn't happening in 1840s England. Burning witches was a few centuries earlier. I get your point, but it would be more powerfully received if you knew your history. If you want an example of what women were going through at that time, they were being more and more relegated to the home, working only in the home, or for very low pay outside of it. They had no vote, and were experiencing a backlash to the very beginnings of the women's movement that started a good 50 years earlier. This was the second industrial revolution and the start of women being "the angel of the house", an attitude that has stayed with us till today and which some people mistakenly think "it's always been that way".
As for stonings, those still happen but not in the UK (though there are Muslim rape gangs in the UK that the police wilfully ignore, make what you will of that. The UK government also houses rapist male in female prison estates, which has resulted in the torture and sexual assault of some women in those prisons).
It's got to be a trick of the camera making those shoes so large looking...she was sooooo tiny in her youth and one's feet usually stop growing long before the rest of us, but they look huge to me. Really, really cool national heirloom artifact!
I honestly am so mad at myself that I went into criminology and not conservation for a degree my absolute dream would be to work alongside like minded people who love history and historic objects such as I do thank you for caring it's really appreciated
I would love to hear Rosie Chamberlin describe more of her textile works! She is so pleasant!
I'm no fashion expert but maybe those shoes were long for a reason?
Victorian ladies wore floor length dresses and skirts. I'm thinking may she wanted a bit of her shoes to show from underneath her clothes? Especially when she curtsied or sat down.
I very much doubt Queen Victoria ever curtsied to anyone. No one outranked Her.
God! I hope that was the reason!
Curtsied? She was the Queen you ignoramus
@@handsoffmycactus2958 no need to be mean about it. Yes she was Queen but she might've curtsied out of respect for other royals of different countries or to her husband or mother or religious figures. Or it might've been the reason that that style of shoe was popular among others and so she wore that same style even though she might not have curtsied to anyone. Honestly I think there are plenty of other times when she would've wanted her shoes to show besides while curtseying so the whole argument is pointless.
@GerryHiggins @Kyle Queens still curtsied. It was a gracious and respectful gesture, not a gesture of submission. Indeed one of the most seemly things a queen could do in this time was curtsy toward her general audience--from the highest archduke to the lowest servant--to demonstrate appreciation for her loyal subjects, without whom their kingdoms would be nothing. Written records tell us that Queen Victoria, as well as her contemporaries, the Empresses Eugenie and Sisi, all curtsied as part of their regular court activities and I have yet to read of anyone thinking a Queen was humiliating herself by doing so.
As for the people being weirded out by her shoes size: 1840s women’s footwear generally had that shape. Her foot shape probably is just fine, it had this shape because of the fashion of the time.
Bull, she had giant feer for a midget.
I lived in the UK for a while, so I can tell that this woman is truly overexcited and bursting with pride an joy.
She has a lovely voice
I just saw those shoes a few weeks ago on vacation! Amazing to see the work that went into getting them there!
Oh! Wow.
They look like Tim Berton designed them
🤣 hideous
Hahahaha 😂 hahahaha
I can’t 😂
Victoria looked to Have a narrow but long foot. That's taking into consideration the extended toe design would lengthen the foot appearance.
girl you talented
Wow! You are very good at your job! Well done!!
Wow that was beautiful work thanks for saving a treasure 🙏
Good job! They look good as new.
What an incredible treasure. And so delicate and tiny!
tiny ? what kind of a freak are u to think thats tiny
@@dustbunny2886 wow such harsh words for such a little being. Victoria was less than 5ft tall, so of course she had very small feet in comparison to the average shoe size today. Might want to check your words and tone at the door before calling someone a freak.
@@choirkitty are u a clown ?......u say queen Victoria had very small feet those shoes are normal/ average and not tiny, if that is your idea of tiny u must have bigger feet then most men
@@dustbunny2886 they are longer with a tapered toe because that was the fashion at the time. If you look at the comments, you would she that she had 9.5 inch feet, which is indeed very small!
They look enormous!!☘🐾
Thank you so much for sharing something so wonderful! You are saving history and it's truly amazing!😍
Ok I don't often fall in love w shoes but these are soooo cool 😎!!!
I wonder what happened to Queen Victoria's other shoes. I know when she was old and portly, she liked to wear sandals, which were not visible under her petticoats. But she must have had hundreds of pairs of shoes and boots.
I think that a lot of her clothes were given away by her dressers after her death. Others are still stored at Buckingham Palace and Kensington Palace.
U sure about that???
I visited London in '99 and during my 2nd visit during the Millennium Year, I got a chance to visit Kensington Palace.
I don't remember anybody mentioning that there was a 'stash' collection of QV's dresses. In fact the 'official' story was then as it is now which is that they "have very few if any of her dresses that remain".
It is amazing that there are many of her items available. I really like the style of her shoes, they are lovely.
Absolutely fascinating! Such considered, delicate work by Textile Conservator Rosie Chamberlin.
Assuming these were worn only inside, water or dirt would have ruined them.
Rosie is so talented!!
I love the shapes... SO FUNKY
Wonderful to see this , I would love to see more video's like this about the Royal Families belongings thru history . Thank you very much
Beautiful work with this conservation :)
What a crafts woman. Those shoes are priceless. How lovely to handle then.
Why am I obsessed with this? I sought old ladies to befriend as a teen so I could be friends with Victorians. WTF. Well, at least I could. I even used to nick cigarettes for an 100 year old lady in 1986 just because...
Probably a past life haunting you lol
Very interesting video. She explained the step by step process she took to restore the shoes. I also wondered what size she wore, understanding the different sizing classifications between the US and UK.
Wow!!! What an amazing job!!!!! You are definitely talented!!!
Was so looking forward to seeing the end result, especially with before and after pics....
This was fascinating!
She narrated really well.
I’m sleep-deprived to the point where I misread ‘Beyond’ as ‘Beyoncé' and remained confuse in the entirety of the video.
This is hilarious! ...lol!
Me too! I could have sworn it said Beyoncè! I saved it to be watched later and saw that it said "beyond" when I had a look the following day!
I wish we had a picture of her wearing them!
Those pumps were a riot
I’d be pooping myself everytime I put a pin in the fabric thinking ‘what if I break this, would I be shot?’
Queen Victoria had nine-inch feet and the shoes are approximately a size 3 or 3½. My size 12 would be gigantic next to these.
When you patch the damage you erase the evidence of the history of the item. I know the patch is temporary but if I were to see these shoes in a museum I would look at the worn area and see something familiar. My own shoes get worn down in a similar way and this fact links me to the past, it makes the queen a more relatable and real person.
Admirable el ciudad of, ya lo querria para mi Paris , gentle que TRABAJAR combo ustedes, con sea dedication
Brilliant,! So interesting.....
Cool video!
I like her voice
Love the shoes!!;
Interesting. I was surprised she is not wearing gloves to protect the fabric from oils on her hands
Janine Harrison Me too☺️
When dealing with historical artefacts gloves can make the hands less sensitive. This increases the chance of accidentally damaging items, perhaps by catching a thread or something like that. When the current Queen's dresser is doing work on Her Majesty's jewellery she doesn't wear gloves.
Surprised she is not wearing gloves. Material that old can only imagine our oils ruin the silk
I thought the same thing!
sometimes when working with very old delicate materials, gloves can actually make us less aware of how much pressure or tension we're applying. the trace amounts of oils on clean hands are way less damaging than the risk of tearing or poking a hole in the original material. that's what i learned when i worked in a rare books department anyway. even books from the 1400s were handled with our bare hands.
I have a friend that works for the nationa trust. I had once got special permission to visit the Georgian library in our local national trust property and asked why they weren't using gloves when handling the books because I thought it was odd. I was told that they had been advised not to, by the specialists, as (latex) gloves can pick up ink and paper fibers off the pages (which damages them) and they were instead told to touch to books etc with clean, dry hands. Mabey it's the same for this situation.
@@lisapugh5015 thanks Lisa. Interesting fact
I think this video may provide a good insight why: th-cam.com/video/VAzLunt6Lr0/w-d-xo.html
It's nice to see when a servant people, maybe wearing their only pair of shoes, worked for no reason for other people that the only thing that they have done is born wealthy. These shoes have passing across the streets while in the same instant, other people were starved. Even today, some people find atractive and needable to serve kings and queens. What a world.
By the way, as only shoes, they are kind of art. Congrats for the shoemaker.
Come sono belli questi tronchetti di raso o seta.
Il modello è così gentile con il tacco semirocchetto.
Complimenti per la riparaziionem.
Interesting that some commenters view them as enormous shoes and some as tiny ones. Am curious what Victoria would wear in modern sizing.
How exciting for you... working with actual pieces of history....
Wish they would have kept the shoes in original condition.
The shoe is so narrow. I wonder how the underside looks. If arches and the foot shape is taken into consideration.
Wow those pumps
Thank you for allowing us to see! What size would they be ?
you can only imagine how tiny they must be, not only are 19thc shoes short but extremely narrow as well (I have sold vintage clothing for 30 years.)
@@omfug7148 but they look rather long. perhaps longer than her foot would have been, as she was so short. was a longer toe fashionable at that time?
omfug Your so right ! I bought a pair of 1940s shoes and thankfully I have a AAA foot. I can’t imagine anyone wearing Victoria’s silk shoes. My vintage dealer says she has many narrow shoes for sale from the past.
She had nine-inch feet and the shoes are approximately a size 3 or 3½.
@@PLuMUK54 hey that's my size, neat!
I'm surprised that the conservator isn't wearing gloves while touching the shoes so much!
Hi Mathias, Wearing gloves is common practice when handling materials such as metal, gilded surfaces and photographic prints, where the oils and salts from hands can transfer onto and adversely affect the object.
Historic textiles are however generally more at risk of damage through insecure handholds, particularly when performing delicate treatment work as shown in this video. As gloves can reduce sensitivity of touch they are not worn for most textile conservation practices. We instead make sure that we handle our objects with clean dry hands. Hand washing removes dirt and natural oils from hands and is therefore see as an effective alternative to gloves.
There are exceptions when we will wear gloves, for example if the textile contains metal threads or has a powdery or dirty surface i.e. deteriorated leather, where the risk of damage through handling without gloves can out way the risk of insensitive handling. - Whether to wear gloves or not is an informed decision made by a conservator on an object by object basis as every object has unique preservation requirements.
@@historicroyalpalaces Awesome! :D Thanks for the Answer! :D
Looks like something Juno Birch would wear
Any chance we could know: when she wore these (obviously not a lot), what size they were (they looked bigger than I imagine Victoria’s foot to be as she was so short) and how did you acquire them?
They're pointed. Quick google tells you she was a size 3. Her feet were 9 inches. Many royal things are given to museums and or archived in the palace.
Size 3? Is that UK sizes? My feet are about 9 inches and I'm a size 8
@@laurens2076
Are you from the US? If so, I believe they do use a different measurement for shoe sizes than we do.
I'm really surprised by this! I figured as a royal, Queen Victoria likely had many pairs of shoes. Were they just lost over time? Maybe they wil pop up in other collections?
DarkwingsDesending I thought she donated most of her items to her servants? I know she did that with her gloves at one point.
What is this inhuman foot shape
Melanie Lawless -Cianci right
Melanie Lawless -Cianci the fashion style of the time
I appreciate this conservation work. However...those are some really creepy looking shoes...
Nowhere near as bad as high heels!
Lol
Rosie if you're reading this please consider becoming a content creator and doing ASMR videos, I could listen to your voice all day! :)
Conservation and presentation is always fascinating--and lord almighty is that conservation absolutely beautiful--but I'm not sure if I agree with the conservator's reasoning for concealing the damage here. She said she wanted people to notice the object, not the damage... but isn't the damage part of the object? To me the most interesting part of this video is when she explains how the damage came about--not because some tragedy befell these shoes, but simply because they were built in such a way that they wouldn't last. And you know, that's crazy to me. Somebody made these shoes by hand--which is something I've done, it takes forever and it's absolutely gruelling work--over the course of weeks or possibly months and they were perfectly willing to have it all fall apart in days because that was fashion. How many pairs of custom-made shoes must the Queen have gone through, and, by extension: How many literal thousands of man-hours must have gone into making shoes for this one woman's feet to look pretty, even knowing perfectly well that her feet will rarely be seen anyway? It's just insane to think, and it says so much about the structure of Victorian society, the importance of the Queen and the importance of her dress that it just seems a shame to me that anyone would want to hide it.
I guess I do understand wanting people to be able to see the shoes as they might have appeared while the Queen herself was wearing them (as certainly she would not have been walking around in torn shoes,) but can't there be some compromise? Isn't it possible for a museum exhibit to tell more than one story? I wonder, since the damage is only on one side, if it would be possible to show the undamaged side, and then show the damaged side, showing guests first the beauty of the finished product and then the fragile, disposable nature of its construction. But of course, museum curators have a lot of things to take into consideration when planning an exhibit, and thankfully this conservation is done in such a way that it can be undone and redone differently if a later exhibit allows for a different approach.
yup 😎
I wonder how comfortable they were?
Well done🤗🙂
Молодец! Отремонтировала.
Big shoes!!!!
Those are some big pointed shoes makes me wonder what she's compensating for but I wonder what her feet really looks like are the funky looking
Given the lack of historical clothing from previous monarchs, does QEII keep all of her clothes, bags, and shoes for future museum display? Is there any information as to how her previous outfits are catalogued and stored so that future historians can review them?
Cool beans!
Queen Victoria, for such a small woman, had long feet.
Those boots were pointy by design, her toes wouldn’t have extended the point of the shoe. They are also leather inside so they wouldn’t have stretched much if at all especially with the silk outer so judging by the lack of bulging at the toe they were both long enough and wide enough.
The wear and tear shows she wore them.
Look at those tiny ankles..
These silk Balenciagas though
I saw a documentary about how difficult it is to match shoes for period films. I just don’t understand that if they make all the clothes from scratch why not the shoes as well, we have so many catalogues from that time period like Sears that sold shoes why not hire a cobbler and do that? One costume maker said she only purchased real vintage and I’m sure it’s way cheaper to make replicas based on photos or in this case the real thing, especially with 3D imaging we have now.
Opera Australia used to have a dedicated shoe making department. Now they work with a separate custom shoe manufacturer on commission. It really depends on local resources and budgets. There are also some US companies that make reproduction shoes (American Duchess etc), but their shoes are in the $100+ range.
Is it me or are those shoes incredibly narrow for the length?
How did it just disappear omg😻
As a woman who has owned shoes....she either loved these shoes, or hated them. Shoes unloved wouldn't have been frequently worn, so they would not have received the general abuse shoes normally do, and they would have had a better chance of aging well/remaining whole. A very loved pair, on the other hand, would have been fixed whenever needed, and her staff would not have dreamed of throwing them away, and thus saved.
Wow
What happened to Queen Victoria’s wedding dress? Did it survive ?
Yes, but the Honiton lace on the skirt has disappeared, probably removed and used elsewhere.
It is on display in Kensington Palace, in the Royal wedding dress collection.
M Scott Thank you! 👵🏻
Are these shoes a US size 7 or UK 37? They look rather large for her height.
I’m the same hight as queen Victoria and those shoes look soooooo long, what size was she?
She had nine-inch feet and the shoes are approximately a size 3 or 3½.
They're pointed, her toes didn't go to the toe of the shoe. She had very small feet
Philip Meers omg I’m a size 6 (American) (3 in my country), and it’s just incredible how long they look specially considering they are kind of my size,
J Byrnes very long, it’s fascinating seeing the fashion of the times, specially considering she and I are kinda the same sizes.
Winklepickers were the same..pointed toe,doesn't mean the toes ago that far down.
Yall know this shoe is deadly
Lol. Size 11? Wow. It's good the dress covered her feet mostly...:')
How huge they are! She was so tiny... they look like maybe they were her moms?... or Feodora’s? My G-daughter is the same ht as Victoria was and she wears a size 5.5-6... or 35,36.
as tiny as these are .. are we to assume she wore these BEFORE her weight got out of control?
Hank Austin i think she mentioned that they were from the beginning of her reign
How overwhelming to think they worn by Victoria and you got to touch ,hold , and repair .
Everyone knows she was tiny yet "plump" at this point in her life. Anybody know what size shoes she wore at this point in her life?
♡
That's some narrow feet she had..!
Robyn MARKOW back then everyone had narrow feet and everyone was short
I thought the same. Weird narrow feet
I dont know which is creepier, the shoes, or rosy
Ok but those shoes look scarily disproportionate. As in, to the point where they look terrifying.
Those shoes look weird and long. I know it a different time but it looks strange.
Its a lil hard to believe that was her shoe. How can u actually say she wore that exact shoe? I mean were they found in the house years ago or what?
Ichabod Crane feet jumped outta the story book. Holy Monte Cristo sandwiches BatMan those things look more like shoe trees than shoes.
Years ago when l was growing up, there was a cartoon about Ichabod Crane, and part of the words of a song describing him said something like are they shovels or are they feet?? I don't remember the name of the cartoon.
@@lynnkanerva4519 The legend of sleepy hollow it was a old disney short.
@@saltyme7711
Thank you for the reply. It's been so long since l saw it, memory fails🙁
@@lynnkanerva4519anytime Hey trust me I know it. im reminded daily my memory is like my youth fleeting.
@@saltyme7711
My youth.....fled. 🤢pushing 60; b-day is May 5. I think l'll hide out somewhere for the day. LOL
How do you walk on those? Did she have long toes lol