BELLA The Living Doll Bonnet

Hurry, Hurry Gather Round To Witness The Greatest Show On Earth!
Witness the unfathomable...The Unusual...The Exotic!
Feast your eyes on the most Curious Mishaps our world has ever seen!

BELLA The Living Doll is part of La Freakshow collection. BELLA The Living Doll Bonnet is an Unusual and highly detailed accessory delicately handmade to capture the Unfathomable Oddities and beauty of The Freak Show In the Mid-16th-20th Century. This Exotic Bonnet emulates a dark gothic richness with hand embellishments including hand-sculpted and painted doll heads..jumbo lollies for a sugar rush... surrounded by Gorgeous sparkling silk ruffles and freaky voodoo dolls.

This Bonnet was inspired by The Freak Show which was an exhibition of freaks, monstrosities and marvels of nature, an essential component of a travelling exhibition in Europe and America throughout the Victorian Period. Anita the Living Doll appeared at the Sheffield Jungle for the one-off visit in April 1911, marking a change from animal-based attractions. The Sheffield Independent newspaper from the 15th April reports from a presentation of Anita at the Grand Hotel, this venue newly opened and often chosen for Jungle publicity events. The attraction is shown initially as some kind of educational or scientific phenomenon, achieved through the careful invitation of medical specialists, academics and civic dignitaries. The press report quickly switches to building the anticipation of Anita as a spectacle. She is described as being 26 Years of age and 26 inches in height, weighing 13 pounds. Her intelligence is mentioned, with Anita speaking German, English and French alongside her native Hungarian. The advertisements for her visit to the Jungle describe her variously as a "living doll", "human atom" and "veritable Venus". Dwarf and midget exhibitors such as Major Mite, Harold Pyott (the English Tom Thumb) and Bostock's own Anita the Living Doll followed in the example of Charles Stratton and became highly successful sideshow novelties. The effect of Barnum on the English showmen and the public was immense and many of the subsequent tricks like midget weddings, births and comic tricks can be traced directly back to him. The rise of the Lilliputian villages or towns, for example, presented by John Lester and Fred Roper in the 1920s and 1930s were a continuation of Barnum's Lilliputian Congress of Nations.

The presentation of human oddities in the Victorian era changed dramatically with P.T. Barnum and his famous exotic attractions. When Barnum arrived in England in 1844 the British showman were amazed that he was hoping to attract so much money for simply exhibiting Unfathomed Oddities. Freak Shows were also essential components of circus shows in America Such as The Ringling Brother Barnum and Baileys's Sideshow. The Stars of the Show were immortalised in Todd Browning's 1932 Film Freak. Living novelty acts continued on carnivals and midways in America and on the travelling fairs in the United Kingdom for most of the twentieth century. Tom Norman is also known as "The Silver King" was the English counterpart of Barnum. He exhibited his performers in shop fronts, on his travelling fair or acted as an agent for the acts. Norman started his career as a sideshow exhibitor in the 1970's when he managed Eliza Jenkins "the Skeleton Woman and a whole range of freak show attractions. He stated in his autobiography "you could indeed exhibit anything in those days. Yes anything from a needle to an anchor, a flea to an elephant, a bloater you could exhibit as a whale. It was not the show; it was the tale that you told." For the British Sideshow performers, their heyday was the Victorian period when the performers were household names and patronised by the general public and royalty alike. Many of the shows that appeared during the reign of Victoria were quickly superseded by the latest novelty or wonder of the age. However, the waxworks display with the freak Show was perhaps the most continually popular travelling type of exhibition in the nineteenth century. Barnum retired in 1865 when his museum burnt to the ground...though Barnum was and still is criticized for exploitation of the acts, he paid the performers fairly handsome sums of money. Some of the acts made the equivalent of what some sport stars make today!