Cinderella in Exile

Like most young girls I wanted to be a princess when I grew up. Our VCR tirelessly played "Disney's Cinderella" and I would watch her glittering finale gown and dream of my own special day. In a puffy white dress. Prince Charming arriving in his horse-drawn carriage. I would watch my mother primping herself before the ballet, rosying her cheeks and twisting her hair. I was hypnotized by her silky dresses and misty perfume, impatiently waiting for the day I would be old enough to play dress-up. 

Visiting Marie-José de Savoie's trousseau at the Mona Bismarck Foundation conjured up these memories. Her sumptuous "wedding chest" is fit to delight any girl's imagination.

According to the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, a "trousseau" is a collection of "possessions, such as clothing and linens, that a bride assembles for her marriage."

 Since the Victorian age, the trousseau is a marital fashion ceremony, clothing the bride from her engagement to her newlywed days. While the bride's family usually participated in the making of these clothes, wealthier families enlisted professional couturiers to assemble an elaborate line-up.


Trousseaus were an indication of a family's social standing and that of Marie-José de Savoie's (1906-2001) is one of sublime and refined taste. 

                                                                     Courtesy: Mona Bismarck Foundation

The Mona Bismarck Foundation dazzles us with a display of over twenty ensembles in a graceful backdrop conceived by renowned couturier M. Hubert de Givenchy. The collection includes twenty evening gowns made with mostly french fabrics. Silks, satins, crepe-embroidered taffetas in simple styles and flattering cuts display beautiful workmanship. It was Marie-José de Savoie’s future Prince that entrusted the trousseau with the help of Italian couturiers. Although the gowns were created by Italian designers such as Gori, Venture and Concetting Buonanno, they are reminiscent of the grecian style and bias cut of Madeleine Vionnet, the structural simplicity of Paul Poiret and the provocative lines of Elsa Schiaparelli. Even the Gori sisters described their creations as "Parisian design with Turin taste." 


The fashion regalia also includes ten royal mantles (cloaks or capes) made from sumptuous taffeta and velvet and embroidered with four to six kilos of gold and silver. Some majestically stretch out to over four meters. The velvet and blue silk mantles of the Princess' ladies-in-waiting are adorned with the emblems of the Savoie house.

The highlight of the exhibition, of course, is the wedding gown and most notably the veil made with fine embroidered Bruges lace. When Marie-Jose arrived many hours late to her wedding she lost that intricate veil three times on her way up the aisle.

Marie-José de Savoie’s marriage to Prince Humbert of Piedmont in 1930, the future king of Italy, would be the last of the Italian royal court. The monarchy was dissolved sixteen years later on the 2nd of June, 1946 by institutional referendum. The Princess of Piedmont became Queen of Italy from the 9th of May 1946 and reigned for only 24 days earning her the title of "May Queen," a title she embraced.  

Despite the royal couple moving to Portugal and then Switzerland, the May Queen's trousseau followed her in exile. The trunks containing the clothes she wore during her reign were carefully preserved for over sixty years and entrusted to her daughter, Princess Marie-Gabrielle de Savoie, one of the Queen's four children.


Princess Marie-Gabrielle must have had oodles of fun playing dress-up with her mother.