![]() The way that she presented herself to the public, with her smart suits and confident posture, drew in women who - like Nan in Tipping the Velvet - had always been searching for something that was just out of reach. Tilley, despite not being an obvious lesbian, garnered a following of women whose sexual difference can’t be dismissed so easily. There are numerous publicity photographs still existing of Tilley, and the divide between those of her in character and out of it is stark. In 1890 she married a man who would later become a Conservative MP, Walter de Frece. Though she went all in with her performances, even wearing male underwear rather than women’s corsets, she always wore fashionable, feminine dresses and bonnets when she wasn’t on stage. Tilley, however, presented a very firm line between the male characters she portrayed on stage and her much more feminine reality. Though the story is about love and lesbian possibility in the late 19th century, it is also about the way that our clothing can shape us, and how male impersonators shaped themselves to the extreme.Īn obvious inspiration for Waters’ novel is Vesta Tilley, argued to be the most famous male impersonator of all time - understandable, since her career lasted from 1869 until 1920. It was an entryway into freedom: not just of sexuality, but of clothing. ![]() The main character of the book, Nan, begins a career as a male impersonator after falling in love with another male impersonator, whose glamorous on-stage persona opened a door for Nan that she never even knew was shut. In fact, the music halls of the Gay Nineties are so renowned that they were the inspiration for Sarah Water’s famous lesbian novel Tipping the Velvet. While there may not be loads of evidence of actual, definite lesbians being male impersonators at this time, it was often very much implied part of my work is to read between the lines of history, and the subtext here is hard to miss. The queerness of the time was reflected on its stages, and male impersonators were very much in fashion, particularly in Britain. Music halls were a phenomenon that rose to popularity in the 1890s - a period often referred to as the “Gay Nineties” (“Gay” being used to mean joyful or happy, but these 90s were also incredibly queer). First, let’s make a pit stop at the music hall.
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