Changing face of fashion

In May 1914, a correspondent for fashion magazine Harper’s Bazaar wrote: “Fashions are never really created... they grow. They are in the air. There seem to be strong currents of thought absolutely demanding certain fashions at certain times.”

As Europe stood on the brink of war 100 years ago, women’s fashion, which had evolved in the context of the early 20th century, was about to be influenced profoundly by the earth-shattering event to come.

The war brought significant changes to the lives of women, their political situation, and the way in which they dressed.

In 1914 the fashionable silhouette for women was long and elongated, with high waists and draped lightweight fabric, such as tulle, silk, chiffon or fine cotton. Corsets were more flexible than the S-shaped Edwardian versions worn before 1910. They sat below the bust, meaning that a new item of underclothing had to be invented to cover the bosom: the “brassiere” was patented in 1914.

Skirts became very narrow at the hem, a style nicknamed the hobble skirt because it made it difficult for women to take a step of more than about two or three inches.

The suffragette movement was taking Britain by storm, but upper and middle class women remained as physically and logistically impeded as ever by their clothing.

Only after a world war were less restrictive clothing fashions, along with votes for women, achieved.

In Britain at this time class dictated what people wore much more than it does today.

The working class made up about eighty percent of society: for the vast majority of women, clothes were an investment, which would only have been replaced when absolutely necessary.

For such women, fashion styles were adopted much more slowly and less precisely. When the hobble skirt came into fashion, less wealthy women may have simply taken a few inches in from the side seams of their existing skirts rather than replacing them.

The truly impoverished scraped together what they could regardless of trends. Women in this situation were often the last in the family to have new clothes, as men and children were prioritised due to their need to be dressed decently for work and school.

For the mother of the family, who stayed hidden at home, appearance mattered less. Such women would have generally stuck to a simple rough cotton blouse, wool skirt and sacking apron.

Upper class women would change clothing multiple times throughout the day: a morning dress would be replaced by a tea dress for the afternoon, and then an evening dress for dinner. With multiple layers, including corsets, women must have spent much of their time dressing and undressing.

The hobble skirt fashions of 1914

Women’s methods of acquiring clothing was also split along class lines. The richest of women had pieces brought to their homes by fitters.

Some upper and middle class women shopped in high-end department shops.

In Oxford, Elliston & Cavell in Magdelen Street and CP Webber’s in High Street, carried the latest fashions.

Stores would often keep a list of measurements for each client so that clothes from the shop could be altered to fit once chosen, or made to measure from scratch.

For poorer women there was a thriving second-hand clothing trade, with used items of clothing often advertised in local newspapers.

Some working class families also paid thruppence a week into clothing clubs, which then bought clothing for the entire group wholesale at a much cheaper rate.

And of course, many women made their own clothing, as well as clothing for the family, often following patterns from magazines.

The First World War was to have a huge impact on the lives on women and their clothing.

In 1915, for the first time in the history of Western women’s fashion, skirt lengths rose above the ankle. The hobble skirt was replaced with the shorter and wider war crinoline.

This practical development partly reflected the new, active roles taken on by women filling jobs left by men called to the Front.

War crinoline styles

Going out to work in factories or offices gave women an opportunity to escape from the home. They could earn money for themselves (rather than relying on parents and husbands), and spend their surplus wages on clothing.

Financial independence and a greater self-respect gained through working for their own money meant that many women and girls who had lived in poverty dared to wear clothes beyond their class.

In some senses then, the First World War had the effect of relaxing the class system, as well as traditional gender roles.

However, although some women benefitted from a newfound freedom produced by wartime conditions, others were as impoverished and as trapped by their class and gender as ever.

Many women suffered financially due to husbands no longer able to support them – absent at war, injured, or, in increasing numbers, killed.

The cost of a basic outfit doubled between 1914 and the end of the war, and many were deprived the benefits to their wardrobes that the war may have brought to other women.

Fashion can provide an insight into gender and class, and the ways in which these identities change.

In general women did not (contrary to much popular opinion) shed their corsets when war broke out, there was no sudden female emancipation, and the lives of women were in many cases made harder by the war.

But the overall way in which women were perceived within society was influenced hugely by their active contribution to World War One.

The inclusion of women (at least married women over thirty) in the right to vote in 1918, and the “boyish”, liberated clothing styles of the 1920s, were in large part the effects of this change in perceptions.

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