Title: The White Peacock 
Collection: The Regency Wardrobe
Garment: Woman’s fan-parasol
Size: Life-sized
 
Materials: Quilling paper strips, FSC accredited paper tablecloth, Japanese rice paper Mizuhiki chord, cartridge paper, quilling paper strips, printed paper, lacquer    

This piece is inspired by the splendor of the white peacock and the shape of its raised tail, as well as the popularity of feathers, used for ornamenting wigs, hats and headdresses during both the Georgian and Victorian eras.
 
The White Peacock is one of the pieces in The Regency Wardrobe collection that most looks forward to the era that is to come. For whilst eighteenth and nineteenth century upper class British audiences would certainly have been familiar with the Indian Blue Peacock the first known white color variation is said to have appeared in 1830.
 
Whilst white was one of the most popular colours for Regency period garments the shape and double use design of this piece is inspired by a black lace Victorian fan-parasol held in the Fidm Dress and Textile Museum in Los Angeles. The White Peacock, similarly to its 1854 ancestor, is a parasol that folds down into a fan.