Generations of women have used dressing tables to display their most treasured objects and to perform the private rituals necessary to face the public or head to bed.
The origin of the dressing table can be traced back to late 17th Century France, when Louis XIV’s elaborate grooming rituals — and the audience of Versailles’ courtiers who hung on his every move — could no longer be contained in a single boudoir. A dedicated dressing space solved the space issue, and to accommodate the requisite array of bottles, mirrors, perfumes and powders, a new piece of furniture was created: la table de toilette.
By the turn of the 20th Century, however, these table-and-mirror combinations had become synonymous with the private moments of everyday life. This sensibility was reflected in paintings by such artists as Felix Vallotton and Mary Cassatt, who posed women before dressing tables to capture feelings of quiet reflection.
Today dressing tables are far less common than they once were, yet there remain women who continue to cherish them. Call it nostalgia, call it sensibility, but for them, it has nothing to do with vanity.
Pretty and functional
From the moment Sandra Tessler saw the Victorian dressing table in an antique mart, she felt drawn to it. “It makes me feel happy because it’s so pretty,” she says. “And it turned out to be much more functional than I anticipated.” Indeed she had been standing to do her makeup before bringing the dressing table to the Long Beach, Ind., summer home of five years that she shares with her husband. But its arrival also gave her a place to showcase what she calls “my tchotchkes.” Nothing on display is particularly valuable — too many young grandchildren roaming around for that, she says — but each piece holds meaning. Examples: the elegant silver brush and comb set discovered in an antique shop five years ago and a trio of carved-stone miniature instruments brought back from Hong Kong in the late 1990s. She also likes to set out the smooth stones she picks up while walking along the beach. “I know where everything came from,” Tessler says. “Everything brings back memories.”
Surrounded by love
Three years ago, Shelley Gorson was able to create her dream dressing table when she moved into a new downtown high-rise. She worked with Chicago-based interior decorator Madeline Gelis to design a sleek, off-white dressing table flanked by matching floor-to-ceiling cabinets outfitted with customized drawers and shelves to cater to her organized nature. “I am always trying to crunch too many things into the day, and I don’t want to be searching for things,” explains Gorson, 57. But there’s also plenty of sentimentality in the space, thanks to a collection of silver-framed family photographs. There’s one of her husband during their trip to China, a favorite shot of her children at 12 and 14 years of age taken more than a decade ago, and a stunning image of her daughter getting ready to serve as a bridesmaid in a friend’s wedding. In yet another frame, three generations are represented as Gorson poses with her daughter and mother. “It is a great luxury to have this space,” Gorson says. “I am surrounded by everyone that I love.”
‘Beauty is what beauty does’
As a girl, Erin Weldon loved watching her mother, Madonna Weldon, seated at the dressing table, putting on makeup. “It was part of growing up and becoming a young lady,” recalls Weldon, who lives in Hinsdale. Weldon, 27, has had her own dressing table since she was 15, including the same makeup mirror she uses to this day: a “True-To-Light” model, that simulates day, evening and office lighting. Weldon acknowledges a weakness for cosmetics promising to make her appear luminous. Yet, Erin says, since she was a child, her mother always emphasized that outer beauty paled in comparison with what was on the inside. Weldon understands that even more since her mother was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2001. “She uses her makeup mirror to put on false eyelashes now that she’s going through chemo,” Weldon says. “She’s a trouper.” As a tribute to that courage, Weldon wrote down one of her mother’s favorite maxims — “Beauty is what beauty does.” And she posted it where she would be sure to see it every day: on her dressing table.
