Antique Edwardian 1900-1903 Summer Gown, Part 3: Fashion Documentation

I have a very early Edwardian dress that I've been examining since 2024. Based on stylistic elements, it was most likely made between 1900-1902. In two 2024 posts, we took a highly detailed tour of its cut and construction. If you haven't already, do read Antique Edwardian 1900-1903 Summer Gown, Part 1: Intro and Shirtwaist Construction, and Antique Edwardian 1900-1903 Summer Gown: Part 2, the Skirt.

This post is all about documenting the fashion to put the dress into context.

To repeat, I believe that this summer dress was made between 1900 and 1902, possibly but not likely 1903. The long-waisted, willowy, sinuous look in a soft and flowing fabric puts it for sure after 1897, when fashion moved from stiff or crisp fabrics to all fabrics soft and flowing, and after 1898 and even 1899, when residual shoulder puffs could be seen in the sleeves. By 1900 sleeves were skin tight, as were bodices, and skirts clung like any mermaid dress. Dresses loosened ever so slightly in 1901; and by 1902 fashion was on its way to piling on the fabric in every looser sleeves, ever blousier fronts, and skirts with ever more fabric until the willowy cut was no more. My dress is of the earlier fashion. 

Around mid-1900 the truly pigeon-breast bodice front made its appearance, after several years of playing with bloused fronts, and this dress, as you can tell, has the modest blousing of the turn of the century. The waistline shifted around September 1900, according to magazines of the day, such as The Delineator and Wiener Mode, such that the bodice and skirt were cut lower in front than in back, a feature The Delineator called "the dip". These lines followed the new straight-front corset, which makes the lower abdomen flat and pushes the hips backwards and therefore up a little.

Then there is the lovely flowing shape of the skirt, in full flower, which flows over the ground at the feet, even in the front, and in this dress, continues into a short train in the back. At the time this was called a “sweep” length, as opposed to a “round”, even-around-the-bottom length, or a short instep length. Each length was suited for different activities. A writer of the time compared the skirt shape to the calyx of a bell-shaped flower. We had moved into a whole different look than just a few short years before.

Putting the Dress in Context: What the Media and Fashion Industry Said

So, shall we put this dress in a fashion context? This will be a long post, I warn you, because I am including some of the scads of research I’ve put together over the years about this era, along with examples of dress features that were recommended by the media and by advertising.

The Ladies Home Journal (hereinafter LHJ) recommended just such light, flowey fabric for summer wear, prioritizing the color white: “(w)hite holds first rank this summer, as it did last, for children, young girls and young women and for older ones also when combined with black”, wrote Emma M. Hooper in her May 1901 column “To Dress Well on a Small Income” (p.32).

She had this to say about the overall cut: 

LHJ May 1901, p. 32

I love Mrs. Hooper's direction for remembering to wear a tiny bustle, at this point often just a pad for everyday wear. It really gives the silhouette oomph.

Further, “The All-White Gown”, an article in the same issue, p. 30, suggests that an unlined gown is an especially good idea because it may easily be washed. My dress is certainly unlined. No drop skirt, no lining for the bodice.

Here is how such a dress, which is often referred to as a gown in this magazine, tends to look. Note the slender, clinging cut at the hip, the skirt opening into a trumpet or upside-down flower shape at the feet, and so long that the fabric puddles on the ground. Also the narrow sleeves and the “pointed”, dropped front of the bodice or shirtwaist at the waistline. It is hard to tell, but the neckline includes a very high collar — that is not an open neck.

LHJ, May 1901, p30

Here are two unlined gowns from the May 1901 Delineator, p. 706, described as “Shirtwaist or House Toilettes”. Note that neither is especially frilly: there is no party at the bottom hem frilling, for instance, and the young lady on the right sports a mannish, probably stiff collar and bow tie. The dress on the left would be perfect for house wear in which someone might come to sit on the front porch or to share an afternoon: the model is wearing a long necklace and her dress has lace; her added velvet ribbon neckwear, was very popular—1901 was mad, mad!—for narrow black velvet ribbons, but more in another post sometime: I even have a darling pink shirtwaist whose lace has been interlaced with it. You'll meet it later in this post.

The unlined gown, or “shirtwaist toilette”, also featured in other seasons. Here is a model from The Delineator, February 1901, picture on p. 196, text p. 208. 

Belts

The model in the LHJ 1901 illustration wears the recommended belt. Narrow belts, often with buckles or its ends crossed in front, were quite fashionable in this year, although the fabric “dip belts” could come in wider widths, some even cummerbund size. They could be separate accessories or made of fabric and slip-stitched on to the garment:

LHJ May 1901, p. 30

Here’s an ad from The Dry Goods Review (Canada), Spring 1901 collected issues, p. 211, on the Internet Archive:

While we are on belts—and no, my dress did not come with one—The Dry Goods Review has what amounts to an extended ad, or puff piece, for a crossed belt with a loop near one end through which the other is inserted. From The Dry Goods Review (Canada), Spring 1901 collected issues, p. 92:

Now you know a bit more about a few, though not all, early Edwardian belt options. I rather like the cross-front option and would choose that one, although women of larger size were often advised to avoid belts. (Certainly wish I had citations for that, but cannot put my hands on them.) I haven’t mentioned, on purpose, the wider “Marie Antoinette girdles”, which, except for the front dip, look like their 1890s predecessors, and which recall the sashes worn in the 1780s, such as with chemise dresses. There is much to figure out about them and on which occasions, and with what cuts of gown, they were worn with. Nor have I mentioned wearing a ribbon sash, although that was very popular.

Tucks

Here is another example of a spring/summer gown, this one from the Austrian magazine Wiener Mode, on its cover for June 1901. A similar line, but with very high-fashion bracelet-length sleeves, rather dressy. American magazines like The Delineator would wait to recommend shorter sleeves widely until about 1902 or so. Do you notice that the gown has a good deal in common with the gown in my collection? Mine has those sleeves and the abundance of narrow vertical tucks.

Wiener Mode cover, June 1901

The Dry Goods Review (Canadian) wrote that vertical tucks were in fashion in its Spring 1901 collected volume of issue (Internet Archive), p. 46:

You will find tucks wide and narrow throughout fashion plates and fashion advice during 1901 and later. They rapidly become a prominent Edwardian theme, in the way that self trim (ruffles and bias bands) is a prevalent theme during the 1870s, and asymmetric draping is in the 1880s. Trims like all of these are more or less present in lots of fashion eras, but they do break out all over every once in a while :}

“Waists”, an Earlier Term for Bodice, and their Pouching

Let’s talk bodice features, or as I’ll call them, “waist” features. “Waist” referred to either a lined bodice or, you guessed it, a shirtwaist, often written “shirt waist”. Back in the aughts, my first readings of fashion columns were really confused, as I thought the writers were referring to just the waistline. No, they’re referring to the bodice. Early shirtwaists were masculine, with high stock collars attached often with buttons, just like men’s, to the shirtwaist’s band collar, and buttoned in front. 

By 1900 and 1901, writers and manufacturers and retailers and people at large could refer to a back-buttoning, lacy, unlined waist as a shirtwaist, too, and sometimes even shirtwaists were lined. The lining was usually tight and boned, and often featured a waist stay, being direct descendants of 1890s bodices. This way the fashion fabric could be draped and gathered, then sewn into position. Whether time has obscured some details or whether people threw around design terminology they way they threw around Madame de Pompadour’s and Marie Antoinette's names, I haven’t a clue.

To make things more of a mess, the word “blouse” is increasingly common, and pretty generally refers to those waists which are blousy—those that have that pigeon-front effect, what The Delineator called the “Juno bust” during the very early years of the century. Why not just say “mature” or “the girls have moved south” and be done with it, but it’s much more chic and nicer euphemistically to refer to famous French women and goddesses.

Pouching of the bodice had been increasingly popular in the late 1890s, so that is not a surefire sign of a mid-1900 and into the ‘00’s date, though you can see minute changes in how it is handled, from an extension of the gathered top-to-bottom front plastron, to fullness confined to the lower part of the bust…the pigeon-front look. 

However, the pouching, when accompanied by a pouch position lower in front and rising towards the back of the shirtwaist/waist, what The Delineator called the “Marie Antoinette dip” in mid-1900, signals a date after the 1890s. This gown has that effect, and features the very early Edwardian long, low waist, pouching confined just to the center front, and especially the little band at the high waistline in back with two eyelet holes for affixing tiny hooks from the skirt to hold the set of the skirt in back and to keep it from gaping away from the bodice. 

The waistline slowly rises during the ‘00 and pouching is less confined to center front. The allover pouching is especially likely to happen with shirtwaists that don’t control the pouch with tuck-in peplum or sewn-down gathering and instead rely on tapes that are attached at the sides and tie in front. The Delineator talks about this as a benefit in its June 1900 dressmaker advice column, although it nearly assures that the wearer must adjust her shirtwaist several times a day as the pouching pulls and migrates. Not so different, really, from blouses the rest of the 20th century into now, which will un-tuck after any reaching or deep leaning, the silly things.

The Cut of the "Waist"

How about the cut of the waist? The divided front is very popular into 1901, though it fades afterwards. In many cases, this cut mimics the uber-popular bolero or Eton jacket, with each side looking a bit jacketish, while the center front mimics a blouse underneath. This was a fashion theme from the mid-1870s on, that of creating some sort of contrast in the center of the bodice: a plastron. By the 1890s plastrons tended to be poofy with stirring or gathering top and bottom. Some were removable and could be used on different outfits.

My dress has a plastron, although it’s built into the waist and not separate. The vertically tucked side fronts appear jacket-ish, edged with applied flat lace. In the center, the eyelet fabric of the plastron is a pretty contrast, without it shouting at the viewer.

Here are several similar effects. First, the LHJ May 1901, p. 30 dress pictured earlier has this effect and the article copy says it’s meant to feel like a jacket and under-vest. 

Here below is another example from The Delineator, a color plate from May 1901; look at the model wearing blue.

Yet another is illustrated in The Dry Goods Review, Spring 1901. I have included the entire page so that you can understand how these were conceived and marketed by readymade clothing manufacturers. (Do you see the little comment in black over the picture? The magazine's owner, evidently a store buyer or owner, wanted to make an order.)

Sleeves

Let’s talk sleeves, because they are such obvious markers during the Edwardian period. Sleeves we’ve seen so far are quite narrow, but they aren’t skin tight they way they tended to be in 1899 or 1900. Here’s a sample, from Vogue, May 3, 1900. Three of the models sport sleeves as tight as possible, while another features very slightly “fuller” sleeves, if you can call them so, and the first sprouting of a bishop cut.

Vogue is not alone in showing this—it’s all over, whatever the illustrator or photographer. I recommend looking at Les Modes photographs.

By 1901 sleeves are a little less tight and probably a good bit more comfortable, especially on humid days. They’ll keep getting bigger in different spots for a few more years.

So, my dress is right on trend as regards sleeve tightness in 1901, and we even see the same sleeve-end frill design as in the Wiener Mode illustration. And of course, my dress, with its train, is not appropriate for working or chores.

About that bracelet length, though: it only appears on rather elegant “toilettes”, to use a Delineator term for an outfit. The dresses may be of cotton, but they’re for gatherings and parties, not the street. In some American magazines, anything other than full-length sleeves was not considered appropriate for daytime, until about 1902. Am I thinking Ladies Home Journal?

Here’s Vogue again, in April 1901, with a very tight sleeve and a delightful lettuce frill, perhaps made by cutting a circle of fabric in a spiral and then hemming the length and attaching it in closely set rows so that it fluffs.

Shorter sleeve acceptability changes in 1902, when The Delineator and all kinds of magazines make a point of illustrating elbow sleeves. As The Delineator’s Paris columnist noted in July 1902, p. 53, in America elbow-length sleeves are “correct” for the street and other situations, but necks are high, while in France, sleeves remain long.

Necklines and Collars

We haven’t mentioned necklines and collars yet. A neckline at the throat and standing collars had been de rigeur for daytime dress since the 1880s and for the early Edwardian period they remain standard wear. Some shirtwaists were made with already-attached high collars made of self fabric, especially the lacy kind; the more masculine styles made use of the separate, heavily starched collars men wore, either strictly plain or with often self-colored embroidery or a touch of lace. The dress or shirtwaist neckline would have a simple neckband and the stiff collar would sit over it.

In other cases, women made pretty, tight standing separate collars, as they had been doing in the 1890s, or found gorgeous ones made of all different kinds of laces. Such collars tended to come in high and very high—to the top of the throat. They were usually set inside with narrow vertical bones or wavy wires to hold them up, with hooks and bars in back to close them. The collars could be worn with several dresses. This is probably the situation with my dress, for there is the little plain band collar. The woman wearing the dress would not have worn that alone. The outfit would have looked unfinished. The collar, like the belt, has gone missing, alas.

Here is LHJ in May 1901 talking about how to make collars in the p.32 article titled “To Dress Well on a Small Income”.

The Delineator calls them "stocks" in August 1901 and discusses at length how to make unlined ones on pp 194-195. Here is a portion of the information.

Here is an example of a low, attached collar on a c1901-1903 fancy unlined shirtwaist in my collection. The copious use of black narrow velvet ribbon and even the little compound bow, now somewhat droopy, that was so popular in 1901 tempt me to date it to that year, but one cannot be sure. The shirtwaist is dressmaker or homemade, and very nicely, too, but there is no label. Oh, and no, the shirtwaist was not cut from a dress. Often they were left unhemmed. That wasn't necessarily laziness. Tucked under a skirt, who wanted to see the outline of a hem on a skirt so closely fitted at the top?

Here's a closer look at the tiny compound ribbon. An example of that compound bow illustrated in Delineator. I believe a similar effect appears on a young lady modeling a score of them on a dressy toilette in Les Modes, May 1901.

By 1902 the “Dutch” jewel neckline sans high collar and shorter sleeves arrive as a much cooler summer option; see The Delineator in June, 1902, for example, but these necklines have lacy effects, and our dress’ little band collar is not the same thing.

Skirts

Many skirts were trained at this time, for house wear in non-work situations, for afternoon promenades or carriage rides, get-togethers, events such as races or expositions, or even dressy street wear, so the train doesn’t date the outfit. A street outfit or working outfit, by contrast, had a "round" hem (no train), whether that almost puddled the floor, brushed the shoe or boot tops, or hiked up a bit for rainy days or sports.

Trains appeared from the end of the 1890s until almost mid-19-aughts, in a way they hadn't been since the later 1870s. Commentary on trailing skirts appeared in a New Zealand paper in January 1901, it was called “The Trail of the Skirt: Expert Opinions in Favor of Trailing Fashions”. Here is a portion, showing that some trailing skirts were designed to be held when walking. I have cited this snippet before, but its discussion of the different types of gowns and their skirt lengths is helpful.

We talked of the skirt's cut and how it reflected the current fashion for puddling, trailing skirts so much in the posts Antique Edwardian 1900-1903 Summer Gown: Part 2, the Skirt, and in A Construction Tour of Four Antique Edwardian Skirts in My Collection, that I won't repeat all that evidence here. 

What to Wear Under the Dress? A Colored "Slip"

Naturally, white could be worn under a translucent dress, but so could a colored slip. We read of these often, but the slips are not common in antique dress shops.  In "Mrs. Ralston Answers", the advice column in LHJ, she recommends colored slips as still being in fashion in 1902. She suggests a two-piece slip. My dress, being perhaps a little more opaque than some summer dresses, probably didn't have one, but then, I haven't tested a color under it.

Well, I hope by this point you have a fair sense of the fashion and construction behind this lovely, simple summer gown currently in my keeping. It was a joy, if a prolonged effort, to put it into context.