London – 1910’sEdwardian Fashion

Jess Freer

1910-1920

What this decade brought aboutChanges to women in fashion and in their lifestyle, power and rights.Societal changes such as signifant events that still impact on todays way of life.Major store openings such as selfridges and a lot of change in the first 10 years of the store opening.Less divide between upper and lower class people as they were now able to shop in the same place, thanks to selfridges.

Major Events • 1909 – Opening of Selfridges• 1912 – Sinking of The Titanic• 1913 – Suffragette movement• 1914 – World War 1 started

As you can see from this image this is a snap shot of a fashion magazine that wealthy women would receive. It is from the late 1910’s and in fact 1918. There isn’t many styles to chose from as material would have been expensive and only the very wealthy would be able to afford to buy new clothes. As you can see there is different codes for the different dresses and most of them cost 25¢

These garments are very intricate and detailed. This would of cost a lot of money back then as there would have been no machinery so all this detail that you can see here would have had to be done by hand. This meant that only the very rich could afford garments like these. There is a lot less material here than in previous eras as clothing is becoming more practical. There is still no show of the ankle yet.

Because of WW1, corsets were gone and so were the massive skirts that women used to wear. Harem skirts were in refelcting the views of the middle east. The war also brought around a shortage in fabric so women were forced to wear less material as it was needed for the war. Mens and womens shoes were now starting to look more and more similar because women needed to start being more practical.

Emily Pankhurst was the leader of the Suffragettes who fought for women’s rights and the right to be able to vote. During this time women thought they were entitled to more freedom and more power amongst the community. Their clothes also reflected in this as the clothes of the early 20th century were manly and masculine and no longer showed off the female body structure and assets. For a time women seemed less bothered about fashion and more about empowering themselves.

By 1910 Selfridges had been open a year so women of wealth were now experiencing going shopping in a department store for the very first time. The bargain basement section of store was aimed at “thrify housewives,” the products were displayed in the same way that they were upstairs, bringing selfridges exclusivety to everyone.In 1910 Mr Selfridge opened a beauty department to the store, this therefore attracted more women to the store.

Here as you can see technology is starting to change, cars and more advanced boats are starting to be used so there is now faster ways of things being transported across different countries. It is also in the time period of WW1.

Women’s hairstyles soon started to reflect what was going on in society. The hair was always neatly pinned up or plaited. This was more practical than having long flowing hair as not much work could be done with that, they also stopped wearing wigs as much as this was no longer practical.

Men’s fashion also replicated the era that they were in, for example the men that were in the army, the clothes that they wore were very simple and practical, compared to the clothes that the men wore that weren’t in the war, they wore top hats, trench coats and you could definitely tell the difference between the two types of men, similar to that of women.