#dressingbyage

[professorpski]

As Mary had never had an expensive evening dress before she found it difficult to choose among so many, but Agnes took command and made her have a soft flowery confection. Agnes herself was going to have a white lace dress. Mary immediately wanted to change her mind and have one like it; but Agnes was firm. 'Don't wear lace or velvet while you are young, Mary, ' she said earnestly. 'Girls always want to, and it is so foolish.'

While the character Agnes is besotted with her children although completely incapable of disciplining them -- as task left to their Nurse--she comes across as a bit of a mental lightweight in Angela Thirkell’s Wild Strawberries from 1934. And yet Agnes is also apparently wise on dress.

The Dress Doctors held that clothing choices should reflect the personality of the wearer which included their age and energy. A “soft flowery confection” was probably made of some kind of light weight silk which would flow around young Mary at the dance and make the most of her movements. the mid-1930s gown often had large, draped collars which echoed the flirty gores that flared out from the bottom of the gowns. In contrast, lace is a complicated and elegant fabric but not know for its drape; Agnes, as a young matron, had far less interest in dancing or in making a splash at the dance party, so she could sit looking lovely.

Mary is a poor relation visiting a very well-off family and, as in most of Thirkell’s works, she is interested in the wrong man as a potential life partner until she realizes whom she really should choose instead. You can find more of Thirkell’s novels at Virago Books: https://www.virago.co.uk/?s=thirkell

[professorpski]

Nurse, who an understandable but erroneous belief that Delia, her baby, was still in the nursery, said it [her mother's black georgette frock] made her look much too old and wished to shorten it. Delia, very conscious when it came to a question of good clothes, of her nineteen years, was enchanted by her own imposing appearance and peacocked up and down in the front of the glass...."

The year was 1939, and the situation was one of finding correct mourning wear to make the death of a relative. In this case, a cranky aunt who liked to bossy people around. The dress was originally Delia’s mother, but was not too tight for her. Delia and Nurse did end up agreeing on the shortening.

Notice how Delia was eager, at 19, to have a dress of her mother’s which clearly made her feel more important while she was wearing it. While during both dress revolutions of the 20th century--the 1920s and the 1960s--everything that looked young was envied. But in between those decades, young women longed to look older, to look like their mothers, to look more imposing and serious, and to be thus taken seriously.

This is from The Brandons, a novel by Angela Thirkell who wrote novels from the 1930s through the 1950s. They can be found here at Virago Books in reprints: https://www.virago.co.uk/?s=thirkell