Hobble Skirts and the New Knickers

I've been looking into 1910s fashion - I want to know what I would have been wearing a hundred years ago. Actually, I thought I knew: long, modest skirts, tight corsets and dark colours. But it seemed worth checking.

Mostly, I was wrong. Point one - just because the photographs are black and white does not mean the clothes were. In fact, according to fashion-era.com, things were pretty colourful in the first half of the decade.  Think ostrich plumes and orientalist styles - at least if you were better off. In 1908, something radical had happened - the waistline had got higher, sitting right below the bust, and your feet could peep out of the bottom of your skirt.

And that skirt, for those in high fashion, was a whole new shape. Hobble skirts had come in, which effectively tied your ankles together. Morticia Addams is probably the most memorable wearer of a hobble skirt - they may not have been quite as tight in the 1910s but the need to walk in tiny footsteps was entertainingly commented on.

In high society, women were changing for every occasion, five or six outfits a day. (Do they now? I suspect so.)  Jayne Shrimpton's article is pretty clear that more active women (i.e. those who actually had to walk around) adapted the hobble skirt design, adding pleats so they could take a full stride. A whole extra area of expression was the blouse, from frilled to 'masculine' with a tie. On your feet were neat boots with one-inch heels. On your head, a flowery and beribboned hat. (I take great joy in the word beribonned.)

And underclothes? I was half-right about corsets: they were worn but a less restrictive version than a decade previously, starting below the bust and spreading over the hips. Hobbled we may have been, but we could breathe. Only one petticoat, rather than layers and layers of lace. Bras were invented but not generally worn - though BBs, or bust bodices, were. And knickers - here I quote Jayne Shrimpton - 'Knee-length knickers were made increasingly with a closed crotch, preferable for wear with knickerbockers and divided skirts.'

Which poses questions about what underwear was like before.