Thursday, August 25, 2011

Bead work in an Arabian Chocolate Box



 Several years ago a friend gave me this chocolate box, Griffen's Arabian Assorted Chocolates.  I wonder what flavour the chocolates were, turkish delight maybe.

Inside the box was this flyer, for John Noble of Manchester who started an early mail order business for clothing in the late 1800's.

Interesting that one of the woman on the letterhead is dressed in Arabian dress, is there a connection with the chocolate box?

Also in the box were also these two bead work trims and loose beads that appear to have been from other trims that had come apart.



The back of the trim shows the heavy canvas fabric the bead work was sewn on, and the stitching used to attach the beads.  It appears the black bugle beads were sewn on one at a time, and the smaller seed beads threaded and sewn on in lengths.  The larger red beads also appear to have been sewn on individually with red thread.

The trims have a Art Deco kind of feel to me, and if this is so date to the 1930's.  Any thoughts from those with a better understanding of the history of fashion than I.

1 comment:

  1. Love this Griffin's box. Haven't seen or heard of "Arabian" before and don't have any information on it. Yes I would say mid to late 1930s to late 1940s. http://longwhitekid.wordpress.com/

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