Turn of the century

Back to Blog Page As you know from last week’s post, I collect historical gowns. If you’ve ever seen one up close, you’ll know why I can’t resist these beautiful works of art; fashion was just so complex and elegant during the turn of the century! I can’t help comparing current women’s fashion to

Autochrome Lumiere made color photography more widely available than it had ever been before, providing a glimpse into life in the early 1900s.

Research has shown that modern women spend, on average, $8 a day on their appearance. But we are fans of the natural look, so we couldn’t miss the opportunity to show you what women with no modern beauty procedures looked like. It seems like some beauty is timeless, and in previous centuries, there were plenty of people who could teach us a lesson or 2 about genuine, natural beauty.

This is another photograph by the Belgian photographer Leonard Misonne and dates from 1899, it shows the view from Lower Regent Street junction with Waterloo Place looking south across Pall Mall to the Duke of York Column. The Guards Crimean War Memorial is in the centre and the Athenaeum Club is at top right. The building on the left was demolished in 1909 and replaced with Cox's Bank, that same building is now a hotel.

This is the starting point for the cover of Neutral Milk Hotel's album In the Aeroplane over the Sea

In the Spring of 1908, three women walked onto the Longchamp racecourse in Paris and jaws dropped. The elite society event was known for debuting the latest couture creations to the public, but no one had seen fashion quite like this before. Dressed in blue, white and havane brown creations, accordi

Vintage

1910 silent movie picture

My version of Simplicity EA258101 with alterations, paired with a split skirt from Historical Emporium I've been on a wardrobe-building bender lately (er, when am I ever *not* wardrobe building?) and usually in Summer I trend towards Belle Epoque and Edwardian for...some reason. Maybe it's the linen tailor-mades. Or

The Pigeon-Breast The Edwardian period brought the S-shape silhouette. The flat-fronted corsets which thrust the hips backwards also lowered the bustline, neatly demonstrated in this illustration from Ladies Home Journal, 1900, comparing the Victorian silhouette with the new shape: As the era wore on, the low, pigeon chest became more pronounced, with the bust spilling over low-fronted corsets or shaped and padded in "figure builder" brassieres.