This very early issue of Home Fashions (only the third published) has 48 pages of vintage ads and fashions for home dressmakers. Let's take a look and see what conventional dressers were wearing during the last days before the First World War.
The front cover is foxed, and appears to have some mold damage, but the details of our young tennis player's costume are still clearly visible. And how active and modern she looks! Her blouse (the free pattern that originally came with the magazine) is open at the throat and the armholes are cut with enough ease to allow her plenty of movement. The skirt, plain except for a few buttons near the hem, reveals the wearer's ankles and a fair bit of one shin.
This is a sports costume, but outfits like this could easily be worn for other activities. The blouse and skirt combo would become a staple in many a war worker's wardrobe in years to come.
For more formal occasions, we have the dresses on the back. The model in the centre is a "young girl"—or in more modern terms, a teenager. (You can tell she's not yet an adult by the fact that her hair is down, and her skirt is slightly shorter than the ones worn by the women flanking her.) They are wearing skirts that descend to the instep, but their costumes are noticeably lighter and more streamlined than those that would have been worn even a few years earlier.
In other words, we have already left the Edwardian era behind and are heading straight towards the 1920s!
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