House of Worth, Couture for 19th-Century Lady Naturalists

Victorian dress taste-maker Charles Frederick Worth, "the father of haute couture,""the first couturier," dominated Parisian fashion in the latter half of the nineteenth century.  The above gold-roses-on-brown-silk dress is one of my favorite Victorian dresses and for Worth it is sedate. He excelled at cream-puffery.

The front view with all my silks gently a-rustling asking,
"Anyone for tea and botanical illustration?"

As a 19th-century lady naturalist and women-in-Victorian-science historical costumer, re-enactor wannabe, I am drawn to Worth's bold botanicals. Roses in particular I have an affinity for, being born in June, the month of roses. Plus, I am making rosehip seed oil with rosehips I foraged in suburbia. Double plus, mid-last-century women were big into botany.

[Homemade rosehip oil.]

However, early women in science, explorer, botanist, #sciart-ist Marianne North (1830-1890), "could not be satiated by roses. At age 40 she set off alone to travel the world, braving rough ship and living conditions to document over 900 plant species in just 14 years."

Marianne North,  ca. 1880, age 50, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
I would rather she be wearing a more befitting crown of roses in her hair instead of that...beribboned doily?

Cherokee Rose with the Peak of Teneriffe in the distance, Marianne North, courtesy of Kew Botanical Gardens.