Fashion tidbits — 100 years ago….
- 1910 postcard
In 1910 the Edwardian era came to an end with the death of England’s King Edward VII. It was also the year Mexico had a revolution, Japan began its empire with the annexation of Korea, the women’s suffrage movement was gaining momentum, and Father’s day was first celebrated.
Some fashion milestones from 1910 include the founding of Elizabeth Arden in New York (women were beginning to wear small amounts of rouge on their cheeks and lips.) The death of King Edward in May 1910, was just before Ascot, which resulted in England’s elite wearing full mourning to the races. A half century later, this event inspired Cecil Beaton to costume the Ascot race scene for My Fair Lady in black and white.
The fashion designer Paul Poiret introduced his “Liberateur” line which freed women of corsets, and Jean Patou, an architect of modern fashion through the development of sportswear, opened his fashion atelier in 1910. Casual and sporting activities such as sea bathing, picnicking, golf, and motoring were on the rise, just in time for the word ‘week-end’ to be coined to reflect the half Saturday and full Sunday being enjoyed by the majority of the working classes for the pursuit of leisure (the two day weekend wasn’t common until the 1930s.)
But most amusingly, according to a snippet from the New York Times, March 22, 1910, long hat pins were being banned!
“It is now a misdemeanor for any woman to wear a long hatpin in public places in Chicago. Any woman caught wearing one is liable to arrest and a fine of $50… A crowd of women had gathered to protest against the measure on the ground that the city had no right to attempt to regulate women’s wearing apparel, and that long hatpins often at night formed women’s only weapon of defense.
The ordinance decrees that “no person while in the public streets…shall wear any hatpin, the exposed point whereof shall protrude more than one-half inch beyond the crown of the hat…”
The argument for the measure was that long hatpins worn in crowded places endangered the eyes, noses, and faces of people. When the vote was announced cries of ‘Shame! Shame!’ came from women in the galleries.”