Ben Stephens is impressed by the Ashmolean’s exhibition on Victorian fashion.
About a third of the way through the Ashmolean Museum’s latest exhibition, Colour Revolution: Victorian Art, Fashion & Design, there’s a wall with the legend: “Colour for the Masses”. Great, I thought – this is where the Church gets a look-in. And it does, shortly and briefly, through a small, ancient and odd-looking book. Made in Rheims at some point in the 9th century, it is a rare “purple codex”; which is to say that its pages are coloured purple and its lettering done in gold.
