Skirts on Show - Sepia Saturday

This week’s Sepia  Saturday prompt photograph features a women kneeling on her long skirt  and holding an early camera to take a photograph. I might not have camera images but I have plenty of skirts to  show.   So another fashion report from me this week!

At the turn of the 19th/20th centuries, a plain dark floor-length skirt was the standard wear for many women such as my great aunt Jennie  Danson (1897-1986).    On leaving school, Jennie went to work in the  Post Office at Poulton le Fylde, Lancashire. Her daughter Pam recalls a story that during the First World War, a telegram was received at the Post  Office for Jennie's widowed mo0ther, Mrs Maria Danson.  Fearing the worst, Jenny was allowed to run home with it.  Fortunately it was good news to say that brother Frank was in hospital in Malta but was doing well.    

Was this a group (above)  of Jennie's work colleagues, given they were all dressed in the  same skirts and blouses?   Even better, Jennie had put names on the back of the photograph -  Gerty Roskell, Jennie Danson, Annie Jolly, Margaret Porter, Madge O' Rourke, Edith Jackson, with Jennie second on the left  with her long plait.

 

 A close look will reveal why Dorothy Chisholm is up a ladder, showing off her long skirt   - she is pruning the plant on the wall. Dorothy was engaged to my great uncle John Danson of Poulton-le-Fylde, Lancashire, who was a widower with a young daughter.  Sadly in 1917 John committed suicide  at Tidworth whilst in army training.    The Danson family remained in contact with Dorothy throughout her life.  She never married and    I have vague memories of visiting her with my mother, when she was living in a bedsit - one of the many women whose lives were changed by the First World War and often  termed as "Surplus Women".   I have looked at finding out more about Dorothy but so far without success. 

   

 

 

 

My husband's grandparents Alice Armitage and Matthew Iley White of South Shields, Co. Durham.   The photograph is believed to have been taken to mark their engagement.  Alice is wearing a distinctive skirt with a broad ruched hem and arrow insets. 

 

Below ~ Alice and Matthew with their three young daughters, c.1914, with Alice in the tradtional plain long dark skirt of the period.  

On to the 1920s

After the war, skirts beame shorter  and here is my husband;s great aunt Violet  Hibbert again, in a typical 1920's look of  cloche hat, long bodice, straight skirt.   

 

    

Another 1920s unmistakable image - my mother's cousin Annie Danson  married on 4 October 1928 and the local press report provided a fascinating picture of the fashion of the day, with a colourful and evocative description of the dresses, with the headline "Gowned in Delphinium Blue". 

“The bride, who was given away by her uncle Mr R. Danson, was gowned in delphinium blue georgette, the sleeveless bodice being plain, while the circular skirt was side slashed and bordered all round with deep silver lace.  Her hat was ruched georgette to tone and she wore silver shoes and hose to tone.  Her bouquet was of pale pink chrysanthemums“.

 

The bane of family historians - two photographs in my son in law's collection , but with no note as to who they are!  

  his bride is in a simple stye of dress with a slightly shorter skirt that was coming  into fashion  at the end of the First World War.  

 

 

 

Another  unmistakable image from the late 1920s for this unidentified photogaph with the bride wearing a short skirt, a cloche hat  and carrying a huge bouquet.   

 

Onto the 1930's 

 In their stylish midi skirts  are my mother Kathleen Danson (left) with her sister Edith.  My mother was apprenticed as a tailoress at the age of 14 and both sisters made their own clothes on a treadle machine at home, which did not have electricity until the late 1950's.  

A late 1930s image of my mother and aunt - this time skirts have got shorter. 
 

1940s simplicity 

Postwar simplicity for my aunt Peggy Danson and her husband Harold Constable, always known as Con. It was a wartime courtship whilst  Peggy was working on the barrage balloons on the east coast. They emigrated after their wedding to Australia.  I  have two cousins there,  but unfortunately  contact was lost following Peggy and Con's deaths.  A pity!

Forty  years on to 1971 and here am I sporting a mini skirt.   This was the era when girls were frantically shortening skirts in their wardrobe to appear in fashion. Even my mother favoured the trend!

 

I loved wearing pinafore dresses and had several in different colours  in my wardrobe - slimming and versatile worn with jumpers or blouses.  Here with Inverary Castle, in Argyll on the west coast of Scotland in the background.

   

 

 

I am standing at the  stone marking the border of Scotland and England, and the entrance to Northumberland National Park.

 1970 - and can't you tell from our outfit  colours!   I am in the orange  and brown which seemed to characteristic the decade and my mother equally vibrant in royal blue and shocking  pink.  I had been to the hairdresser's to achieve that bouffant hairstyle. 

1977 - Another mother and daughter alike pose - same colour outfits, four knees on show! 

We were soon to move fashion wise  into the midi and the maxi era  and  the hippy look - long flowing skirts - not my style at all.  But  for a brief period,   and at  the only time of my life,  I was on trend  with my mini skirts. 

 

And Finally - back to the start - and wearing long black skirts  - this was pretty much the standard uniform for choirs in the late 1970s, before other fashions took over. 

 

The alto section of my choir - Roxburgh Singers - I am on second on the left in the back row.  

 

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