Dorothea Barth Musician and WriterElegant Violin Music for your Wedding or Special EventCeltic Sheet Music Arrangements
Original CompositionsPoetry and Prose

Two decades after being captured by Franco Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet, I finally got my longed-for Juliet gown, an Italian Renaissance dress worthy of the heroine from Verona, six months older than me but in my imagination forever fifteen.

            The fortress where the gown came to life was the City Water Department, where the gown's creator served as guardian against watery mishaps. Since mishaps seldom materialized during her 24-hour watch, the guardian’s diversion was a late-model sewing machine. In deepest night, she resurrected wearable art from centuries past. We'd met during sessions with the American Recorder Society, where we played such music as accompanied Juliet on her romantic rendezvous.

            During break for one such session, I was measured for the gown so that a mockup could be made. Though I barely survived eighth grade sewing class, I have a keen appreciation for colors and fine fabrics and rose to the challenge of gathering materials for the gown.

            Beholding the finished gown, I knew I’d chosen well. The chemise billowing between upper and lower sleeves and above the bosom was fashioned from demure white batiste, intricately pleated at the neckline and cuffs. The gown itself was muted mauve corduroy (a practical concession the designer assured me wouldn’t detract from its authentic beauty). It fell in unpressed pleats beneath the bosom, the center pleat on each side edged in rich metallic.

            Most stunning was the bodice. I'd spared no expense in purchasing delicately embroidered European trim of burgundy, black, and gold to adorn the front. Upper sleeves with flora of olive, burgundy, teal, and brown were redolent of ripe autumn. The sleeves’ material re-appeared in a drawstring bag hanging from the belt as well as in the donut-style hat, whose alternating stripes of quilted velvet echoed the lower sleeves with their engraved brass buttons. In period style, the gown fastened with lacing and grommets.

            The gown's creator agreed it was indeed her finest work, and I was for once pleased with my reflection. I lacked the exotic look of Zeffirelli’s Juliet, and at present, I had no Romeo. But with my love of music and fantasy, I'd have ample occasion to wear the gown. A camera captured the thrill of my first meeting with the gown.

            In later pictures, I wear the gown accompanied by my new husband, dapper in a Renaissance doublet. Additional finery would be created for my musical performances, but none rivaled the maidenly splendor of my Juliet gown.

           One Valentine’s Day in a new millennium, I purchased the DVD of Romeo and Juliet and once again absorbed its lush imagery and exquisite characters. Inspired to search the internet for the actress that once played Juliet, I discovered interviews with photos showing her still slender, dark-haired, and beautiful, not in fair Verona but somewhere near Venice Beach and middle-aged like me. One article alluded to motorbikes and spandex and not much associated with Juliet except a memory that the gowns had been heavy and hot, the training to transform her Spanish accent into an English accent grueling, and the typecasting that followed the film somewhat problematical.

            Not long afterwards, I retrieved the gown, wedged amidst my concert apparel, from the hall closet to lend to a friend for a Renaissance Ball. The gown cast its spell, and an offer to purchase it followed. Though the gown no longer fit me, I could not assign a price. The fabric's expense could be reconstructed and the fee for the gown's labor recollected, but the gown had become more than the sum of those materials and energies. Resonant with history, hope, and longing, the gown's value could only be honored by its continued life. It would have to be a gift, a catalyst that might continue to inspire. Gathering the gown’s shimmering parts, I placed them in a bag of modern plastic and prepared to deliver them to a new Juliet.

            My days of commissioning wearable art are not yet over. Medieval dresses, in their flowing simplicity, flatter me now, and tippet sleeves floating from the elbows are sensational for playing the violin.