ABSTRACT
Bride was produced at the Opéra Comique in London, first performance April 23, 1881. Durward Lely played Bunthorne, the fleshly poet in rivalry with the idyllic poet Archibald Grosvenor for the love of the village milk-maid, Patience. In Patience the contrast between aesthetes and others was emphasised by the uniforms in bright primary colours of the army officers whose attentions were rebuffed by the chorus of soulful maidens. Wilde repeated some of the lectures in England, and also lectured for the Rational Dress Society, of which his wife was an active member. Liberty's LOTUS fabrics won a gold medal at the Amsterdam Exhibition of 1883, and their Art Fabrics Catalogue of that year describes some of the materials they were handling, while pointing out that almost daily they were receiving bales of silks which, on account of their great rarity and miscellaneous nature, it was impossible to catalogue.
