Ghosts of the Past

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVIII, Issue 19959, 17 November 1934, Page 10

Ghosts of the Past

The much-discussed Pioneer Ball, held recently in connection with the Melbourne Centenary festivities, must have brought back as many delightful memories to those of the older generation as did a fascinating exhibition of bygone fashions held not long ago in the home of an English princess in a London square.

On several floors of the house were ranged “shells” of dresses whose wearers had been dead for a century. Silently they stood; silks and muslins, dresses, wraps, caps and bonnets; faded flowers and tiny carriage parasols, mittens and shoes. Ribbons on big straw hats were faded a little, yet in general the preservation of the exhibits was a thing to wonder at. Four hundred of them, the bulk of the exhibition, were lent by Dr. Willett Cunnington, who has made a hobby of collecting frocks representative of different periods from all over England, Scotland and Ireland. The frilled jabots and collars we affect to-day are echoes of some of the starched cambrics and muslins of the eighties, according to this “Exhibition of English Women’s Clothing in the 19th Century.” A day dress “of printed cotton in an all-over pattern” was shown as one instance of a fashion of 1800-3. Swansdown muffs and stoles were used in 1815, so were boas, yet we flaunt them to-day and dub them Edwardian! Elastic net scarves were worn in 1809, and an evening frock of India muslin, embroidered in gold lame, was worn by some great lady in 1808. Whereas chaperons and debutantes of 1934 have trains and frocks of lame. To our modern eyes, it seems strange to see a wedding dress of shot glace silk with a woollen fringe, but one so trimmed was worn at a wedding in 1869. In the Empire period women tried to wear as little bulk as they could, and their clothing weighed about ilb. In the sixties the popularity of crinolines and petticoats increased the

THE FASHIONS OF BYGONE DAYS

weight of clothing very much, and this went on until, in the nineties, one dress (it is on view), a crimson black lace veiled gown and train weighed 511 b. Horsehair petticoats were the forerunners of the crinoline, which was a cagelike affair. The idea among fashionable women at this time was to have their dresses as bulky as possible, and they would wear sometimes as many as six starched petticoats over the horsehair one. But there were fashions then of which we have as counterpart our sports clothes. For example, a carriage dress of satin or silken material such as a woman of position wore in 1850-54 is an unknown quantity to us, though a morning dress of the same period in check gingham coincides with our own simple summer morning frock of the same material! Very quaint were the embroidered net caps, which reminded one of a child’s bonnet such as were worn in the 1840’s. Sometimes these were very fancy affairs trimmed with rosettes, while the bonnets of the same time were picturesque with flowers and ribbons, the colours of which have remained very clear through the years. A carriage fan parasol, striped, with a telescopic handle, and one of white taffetas with an ivory handle, were representatives of these things as used from 1840 up to 1875. Among the many interesting relics of those bygone fashions were included a pair of cut-steel garter buckles, dating from 1830-50; a pocket mirror of black bone, used in 1810-20; and a white Angora muff dated 1871. From 1800 onward gloves of elbow length and shorter were very important items of dress; so were mittens and shawls. A cardinal cape made of feathers was worn in 1840-2. There were several types of bustles, some of which were collapsible, worn in 1886 and 1833, and the very early ones, dating back to sausage bustles of 1813, and later to several tier ones. There was much to liken to our own fashions, however, both in material and style.