La Mode (26 Septembre 1915)

From World War II to World War I: let's take a look what was happening to fashion in the waning days of 1915.

And the most startling innovation is—skirts have now risen above the wearers' ankles!  Adult women's ankles had been hidden in ordinary wear for centuries.  (There were exceptions, of course, for certain kinds of working dress and costumes worn by entertainers.)  However, nice middle class ladies like the ones depicted below, would never have appeared in public wearing skirts as shockingly short as these.

What they probably didn't realise as yet was that the days when skirts for day wear would trail on the ground were over.  Skirts would have their ups and downs in the coming decades, but as far as length goes, this would be as low as it got.

1. Robe d'enfant — Cétte robe trés simple á attache par des boutons boules et se ferme avec une large ceinture.

[1.  Children's dress — This very simple dress fastens with ball buttons and closes with a wide belt.]

2. Robe habilitée en taffetas — Jupe froncée, blouson de mousseline gris recouverte de bretelles de taffetas.
[2. Taffeta dress — Gathered skirt, gray chiffon jacket covered with taffeta straps.]

3. Costume genre tailleur — Jupe découpée sur un panneau plissé, petit boléro blousé devant.
[3. Tailored-style costume — Skirt cut on a pleated panel, small bolero bloused in front.]

4. Robe de fillette — Jupe foncée à volants, corsage blousé garni d'une cravate de satin d'un col de dentelle.
[4. Girl's dress — Dark ruffled skirt, bloused bodice trimmed with a satin tie and a lace collar.]

"For the Lighter Side of Life" (Delineator, December 1916)

 The First World War was raging in Europe, but fashion still went on its merry way.    

You'll note the new wartime silhouette—wide skirts, now well clear of the ankles, and an absence of tightly laced corsets.  Fashion historians often claim that this more relaxed style was a result of the war itself.  Women doing war work needed clothes that didn't hamper them.  However, looking at this picture it becomes clear that the new styles were also perfect for dancing.  Ragtime had already made its mark, and now these young ladies look ready to foxtrot and one-step their way into the Jazz Age.

From left to right:

The Isles of Greece never produced anything quite so smart and fascinating as design 8832— a dress in Grecian style made for a modern goddess.  The one-piece gown can be drawn in, in Empire fashion; or a lower waistline, if more becoming is equally good style and effective... A dress of satin, veiled with tulle is very beautiful for Winter functions.

Keeping step with Fashions's swiftly revolving wheel is easy work when one chooses such a model as design 8824-8820.  The basque effect in the waist is very pretty and becoming for evening wear.  And the standaway, flyaway look of the new collar is extremely smart and striking.  A slightly raised waistline is always becoming, but a regulation one is also offered.  The soft fulness of the handkerchief overskirts contrasts prettily with the bodice lines of the waist.

When is a dress not a dress?  When it is a smart evening frock (design 8813-8820).  Says that leading lady—Fashion—there is a subtle distinction that gives this model its chief charm.  The girdle, which can be cut in two different outlines at the bottom, gives individuality to the waist.  A sleeve made in cape effect is very unusual and striking... One or two handkerchief overskirts make the skirt...

"La Mode" (19 Décembre 1915)

Hems had been rising steadily since the beginning of the 1910s.  At first they only revealed the tips of the wearer's shoes, then they stealthily rose to her insteps, before clearing her ankles around the start of the First World War.  Here, just shy of eighteen months into the War they have risen to around the bottom of the wearer's calves—much to the shock of older and more conservative members of society!

This cover also illustrates, right at the end of 1915, an early version of the "war crinoline".  Unlike Victorian crinolines, these wide skirts weren't supported by a wire under-structure.  They remained fashionable through 1916 and most of 1917, before deflating towards the end of the war.

If these costumes look rather plainer than the fashions of 1910, it was because war shortages were starting to bite.  The editors of La Mode comment:

"La difficulté des approvisionnements on étoffes, passmenteries, dentelles impose forcemént des limites a l'imagination de nos grandes faiseuses."

["The difficulty of supplying fabrics, trimmings, lace, necessarily imposes limits on the imagination of our great creators." ]

"The Country's Call" (McCall's Magazine, July 1917)

 Women have always worked, but in total war the working woman suddenly becomes more fashionable than the lady of leisure.  In the summer of 1917 McCall's issued a number of patterns for the patriotic war worker.

At the top (and to the top) we have a "nurses' or maids' cap and aprons" and a "nurses' uniform".  By 1917 nursing was a conventional career for a woman, and the uniforms depicted above would not have been considered startling by anyone.

The figures at the bottom, however, are more challenging.  On the right is a woman wearing a "waist" and a "ladies' sports skirt" for working outdoors.  The skirt is very short by the standards of 1917 (see the nurses uniforms by way of comparison) and the outfit is completed by a pair of "bloomers" and leggings worn underneath.  The leggings can be seen peeking out from under the skirt.  The recommended material for this costume was khaki. 

On the left is an even more shocking innovation: pants!  Or, as the magazine puts it, a "ladies' and misses' overall suit".  In its dressmaking column, McCall's Magazine goes to some length to sell the garment to potential wearers: 

The woman with the hoe is becoming more and more a familiar figure; but the hoe and the skirt, these two which have always been antagonistic, are yet to be reconciled.  The fact is that skirts must be dispensed with, however short they may be, you cannot get away from the fact that they are always a handicap in the work that farming or gardening entail.  The only practical and comfortable thing to wear for working in the fields is the overall suit with roomy bloomers, which many women have adopted.  Even if your gardening activities are limited to a small backyard only large enough to supply the vegetables for the needs of the family, you will find that you need overalls.  If you think about that shabby old skirt you had hanging in the closet ever so long and wanted to get rid of by wearing it out this summer, will do just as well, you are mistaken.

And, here may I say that many women have learned the value of using overalls for work about the house.  They are also used by women workers in factories.

"Promenade d'Automne" (Le Petit Echo de la Mode, October 7 1917)

 By October 1917, World War I had ground on for over three years.  Though today we think of the War as it affected the men in the trenches, it also had profound effects on the civilian population.  In particular it lead to harsh shortages on the home front as men were called away to fight and resources were diverted from civilian use into the military.

The coats depicted below show how wartime conditions affected fashion.  They are warm (essential in a time of fuel shortages) and practical (well off the ground and with big pockets!) and are noticeably plainer than they would have been before the War.

1.  Heavy jersey coat, straight fit, with corner closed by a buckle covered with the same fabric.

2. Tailored suit in wool velvet.  Long, straight frock coat, with two large pleats behind and in front passing over a buttoned belt.

3. Duvetine coat, straight and solid shape, with a high belt decorated with buttons.

4. Coat for girls in terry fabric, straight shape with a buttoned belt.  Scarf shaped collar, draped, closed  with a button.

Land Girl (1917-8)

 This real photo postcard can be dated almost to the year, because the sitter is wearing the uniform of the (British) Women's Land Army.  The Board of Agriculture created the Land Army early in 1917 to replace the farm workers who had gone off to war.  The uniform they finally settled on consisted of a sou'wester had, knee length coat, boots, leather leggings—and "breeches with wide posteriors, tapering to fit tightly around the calves, and sealed by gaiters."  The Land Girl in this photo appears to be showing off her crisp new uniform—and daringly, she is smoking a cigarette! 

Not surprisingly, the uniform was considered shocking, particularly by the older generation:

"The Land Army demanded references, so Annie approached the elderly wife of the canon who lived in her village, to be told: 'Do you know what it involves?  You'll be dressed as a man, and I object to that—it's a disgrace to show your ankles.'  Annie recalled the interview sixty years later, and was still not wholly convinced the canon's wife was wrong, adding, 'And it was [a disgrace], I had my skirts to the ground.'"

From Kate Adie: Fighting on the Home Front (2013)

 

"La Mode" (29 August 1915)

Looking for something to post I realised that this was published exactly 105 years ago today.  It seems like an omen—so here goes!

1.

   1. Robe de lainage.  — Jupe plisée devant avec empiecement  gansé, corsage blouse en mousseline avec bretelles de tissue.
 2. Costume tailleur pour fillette. — Jupe garnie de plis creux sur le devant.  Jaquette droite le découpée devant agrémentée de larges revers.
3. Robe princesse à 3 volants en forme — Elle est garnie dans le dos et la devant d’un large pli rond. 

 

1. Woolen dress.— Skirt pleated at the front with braided yoke, chiffon blouse bodice with fabric straps.      
2. Tailored costume for a girl. — Skirt with box pleats on the front. Straight jacket, cut in front with wide lapels.    
3. Princess dress with 3 shaped ruffles — It is trimmed in the back and the front with a wide round pleat.

"Something New From Something Old" (Ladies Home Journal, March 1918)

Through the years I've posted a lot about "make do and mend" as it was practiced during World War II.   It hadn't occurred to me that people would be tackling the same kinds of shortages during World War I, until I found this article from 1918 giving women suggestions for remodelling their old clothes into new fashions.

Of course, women had been re-making clothes long before the First World War, and would continue to do so after the Second.  However in peacetime this kind of economy was slightly embarrassing: it didn't make its way into the fashion magazines or the glossy women's service magazines.  In wartime it became both fashionable and patriotic—a matter for pride!

"At last the rumors are out, and by next autumn they say we shall be allotted just so many years of material to make our dresses with, and there will be no big, roomy pockets, no fascinating dangling girdles and no plaits hidden away to consume extra yards.  How to make a smart and warm dress with a minimum amount of woolen fabric will require a maximum amount of skillful planning, and here is a whole page of pretty ideas which will help you begin your early training in economizing right now."

"There are all sorts of ways to save wool, but the smartest way is to eke it out with soft silk.  One must have a least one warm dress for the crisp spring days, and the combination of silk and wool, which Paris has been so quick to sanction, provides an economical as well as attractive method of using an old silk dress which nearly everyone has , with a few yards of woolen material, which is all one can afford to buy in these days.  This smart little frock (no. 1507) made such clever use of the old beige crêpe de Chine dress on the left for its chemisette and the back and front of the side-opening skirt... A remnant of navy blue jersey cloth made the blouse and skirt yoke..."

"Below is a black satin skirt which gave itself up unreservedly for the blue serge coat dress (no. 1494).  Even though you may not have a black satin skirt exactly like the one below to use as a foundation, don't despair, as almost any old two or three gored pattern may be narrowed down to the straight lines of the new silhouette..."

"To keep up with the times this four-year-old charmeuse made no protest at being transformed into a graceful tunic blouse.  Very few new materials are being produced at the present time, in consequence of which the French designers are showing their ingenuity in using old materials in new ways and combinations.  The lovely blouse shown here (No. 1497) was copied from a French design, and it is one of the war-necessity blouses, being made for ease at the armholes and comfort of fit, so that one can slip into easily and work unrestricted whether at sewing, bandage making or knitting.  It is deeply pocketed, too, for unexpected overflow contributions."

 

"Have you an old broadcloth evening wrap like this one... too good to discard and yet too dowdy to wear?  If you have, this good-looking topper coat ... (No. 1493) is one of the things you can make it over into.  It is not always possible in making over to use two old garments for this purpose, and a yard or two of new material of matching or contrasting color in a different weave will often cover deficiencies which the old material may have.  In this coat... a bolivia with its twilled weave made a pleasing contrast with the smooth surface of the broadcloth."

"There are more ways than one of making an old coat-suit into a one-piece dress than you dreamed of in your philosophy.  One of the newest ways is illustrated just below in the good-looking street dress (No. 1487), and a glimpse of what it used to be before this great change took place in its life is shown in the little sketch on the left below.  Almost any type of coat which is not cut away at the front may be adapted to this design, and the ubiquitous black satin, which goes so smartly with everything will make the foundation skirt, collar and sash ends... In remodeling a coat into a dress, the sleeves usually must be taken in at the seam and the coat at the underarm to give the slimness essential to a one-piece dress if you wish it to be smart."

It was fortunate that the fashions of 1915-17 were so ample: it gave the  dressmakers of 1918 who wanted to remake their old clothes into new ones plenty of material to work with!

"La Mode" (25th of July, 1915)

 

I got this magazine—bound with a number of other issues from the same year—at a vintage fashion fair where someone was disposing of material used in an exhibition of First World War fashion.  The covers of the issues from earlier in 1915 all have patriotic themes: pictures of Huns confronting innocent Belgians, pictures of women and children giving gifts to wounded soldiers, pictures of royalty from allied nations.  However by this issue La Mode had banished the war from its front cover and had reverted to its role of a fashion magazine pure and simple.

The clothes worn by the models in this illustration are noticeably simpler and easier fitting than the clothes that were fashionable less than a year earlier.  The war was already making its mark on women's clothing.  Inside, the editorial staff had a few words of praise for tailored suits:

Costumes Tailleur

Avec un simple et correct tailleur, une femme est toujours élégante, sis a chausure et ses gants sont irréprochables de fraicher.

On tait cette année beaucoup de tailleurs à rayures plus ou moins irrégulieres, à damiers, éccosais, dans des tons neuters et doux de preference.

Mais nous insisterons sur la corréction de la coupe tailleur tradionnelle: et qui reste la caractéristique d’une femme élegante.

Malgré la coupe correct, le costume en lainage léger sera trés agréable pour les villégiatures de l’éte.  

[Tailored Suits

With a simple and correct tailor, a woman is always elegant, wearing impeccably fresh shoes and gloves.  

This year there have been many suits with more or less irregular stripes, checks, and tartans, preferably in neutral and soft tones.

But we will insist of the correctness of the traditional tailor cut which remains characteristic of an elegant woman.

Despite the correct cut, the light wool suit will be very pleasant for summer resorts.]

Styles from "The Delineator" (September 1916)

The Delineator promoted Butterick patterns, so the styles depicted in its pages were up-to-date but safe enough to appeal to the average woman.  Here we have a couple of plates that illustrate the way in which fashion was becoming more modern in the mid-1910s. 

As you can see, the fit is much more relaxed than it was even a few years earlier, and the models no longer have figures that have been obviously squeezed in and padded out.  (Most women would still have been wearing some kind of corset under their outer garments, however.)  The most noticeable  innovation is the shortening skirt: the hemline has now risen to about calf-length, something that had not been seen in fashionable dress before.

Lastly, many a modern woman would be envious of the pockets in some of these dresses!

Left to Right:

"... a smart trotteur like 8614-8402 is just the thing.  The skirt is in two or three or four pieces with a slightly raised waistline and may be finished with a belt and pockets.  The blouse-waist has a jumper which can be slipped over the head and closes on the right shoulder... The braiding makes an inexpensive but up-to-date trimming."

"There is a distinction and grace about this dress (designs 8632 and 8644) which leave you in doubt as to whether to credit the soft cord or tuck shirring at the front and back of the skirt, or the clever merging of the vestee into an eminently becoming sailor collar."

"The full body of design 8637 might or might not be called a 'sheer waist of good material,' but combined with 8619 it certainly makes a ravishing gown. The broken line suggested in the bolero is repeated successfully in the two piece lower part of the skirt, the straight upper section of which can be made in the regulation or slightly higher waistline."

Left to Right:

"A hint of the jumper is present in the blouse which may be made over a blouse body lining.  If you prefer a high collar for Fall wear, a very pretty style is offered as an alternative to the low.  There are also shorter length sleeves if you prefer them."

"Carrying coals to Newcastle isn't half as absurd as laying any more tributes at the feet (or hem) of the highly sung Russian blouse (8650-8118); and of all Russian blouses the plaited ones falling from a yoke are the newest."

"Of one stripe are this charming waist (8622) and this equally charming skirt (8638).  The stripes run up and down in the straight upper part of the skirt from the slightly raised waistline to the two-piece circular flounce, but they run as they list on the body and oversleeve which are made in one over a French lining.  A choice of collars and undersleeves is left to you."

"Rings on your fingers and bells on your toes aren't any more thrilling than buckles on your waist and skirt (8620).  You can use buttons instead if you feel that way about it, and you can leave off the straps and pockets and and shorten the sleeves and put on a high collar and otherwise vary the design without in the least affecting its utter smartness."