BEAUTIES OF EDWARDIAN ERA !

The Edwardian period of British history covers the brief reign of King Edward VII ( 1901 -1910).The Edwardian period is sometimes imagined as a romantic golden age of long summer afternoons and garden parties, basking in a sun that never sets on the British Empire.

Dressing an Edwardian lady:

Beginning with the undergarments, their wardrobe would consist of several sets of lingeries — day and night chemises, drawers, knickerbockers and petticoats.

They would start their day by choosing their combination, and then be laced into a straight front or s-curve corset, over which they would wear a corset cover.

Next comes the first of their day outfits, usually a tailored morning outfit, which they could wear out for shopping or meeting a friend. This normally consisted of a smart blouse and a gored skirt combination, worn with a jacket during the colder months.

When they return for lunch, they would change quickly into your afternoon dress , which in summer time was always a colorful pastel affair.

By 5pm they would then remove — with relief — your corset, and slip into a tea gown, for lounging in and receiving friends.By 8pm they would be tied once more into your corset, possibly a fresh change of lingerie, and then don an evening dress, either for wearing indoors, or if the occasion demanded, their chosen dress for going to a specific occasion.

Modes in Dress — 1900 and 1909:

Women took to wearing more tailored jackets, worn with long skirts and high heel ankle boots.
The silhouette moved gradually along a decreasing s-curve from 1901 to the Empire line by 1910 . Common colors for Edwardian women’s day-wear were combination two tone affairs of pale tops and dark skirts. The fabrics employed were linen , cotton and silks and high grade cottons .

Despite the restrictions of corsets, women, especially in the new middle class, began to have more social freedoms. It became common for women friends to travel together abroad on cycling trips — to the Alps for instance, or to Italy, as was beautifully portrayed in the Merchant ivory film ‘ A Room with a View‘ , an E.M Forster story published in 1908.

The popular Day Outfit!

The combination was the matching of a high necked white or pale cotton blouse with a dark tight fitting A-line gored skirt, reaching from the ankle to just below the bust. Some skirts were also stitched in corselet fashion from the waist to below the breasts.

Skirts often had one single seam, and the result was a pleasing shapeliness that added contour to the most unpromising figures!

Hemlines went to the floor, with a hitch facility for entering carriages. By 1910 — the hem began to lift to just above the ankle. The blouse silhouette began with puffed shoulders but by 1914, the shoulders were much slimmer — which in turn added more roundness to the hips.

Afternoon Dresses!

These styles, though in highly colorful pastel shades and lots of applique detail, remained fairly conservative during the 1900s, as they were often worn to formal luncheons, meetings, and conservative female gatherings — the dress code of which was under the control of a girls more Victorian minded mother!

Tea Gowns — usually donned by 5pm, if a woman had returned home, were delightful affairs, often white cotton, extremely comfortable. This period in an Edwardian lady’s day was the one time, she could remove her corset and breathe normally! She would often entertain her friends wearing a tea gown, as she could afford to be fairly informal.

In Edwardian Britain, the age old London Season, running from February to July, allowed women the opportunity to display their very best Paris acquisitions. From the opening of Covent Garden to the Royal Drawing Rooms, to private balls and concerts, and to Ascot Royal Enclosure, the very latest, the best and the worst in fashions were displayed by the social elite.

Evening dresses !

These dresses in the Edwardian era were flamboyant and provocative, with low cut bodices allowing an overt display of jewelry and bosom! Evening frou-frou in the 1900s meant luxurious sensual fabric . By 1910 women were growing tired of bulky evening dress, and in particular, French women began to remove the trains from their dresses and embrace the new Empire lines, especially Poiret’s Ballet Russes inspired creations.

In 1909, as the Edwardian era came to a close — a strange mode appeared in the form of the hobble skirt — a tubular affair, credited by some to Paul Poiret.

The hobble skirt — It effectively clamped a woman’s knees together and made movement of any kind a difficulty. Combined with the increasing vogue of wide brimmed hats popularized by Lucille– Poiret’s main American competitor, it seemed as if fashion had lost all reason by 1910.