Ascot Fashions for 1921

Cavendish Mews is a smart set of flats in Mayfair where flapper and modern woman, the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd has set up home after coming of age and gaining her allowance. To supplement her already generous allowance, and to break away from dependence upon her family, Lettice has established herself as a society interior designer, so her flat is decorated with a mixture of elegant antique Georgian pieces and modern Art Deco furnishings, using it as a showroom for what she can offer to her well heeled clients.

 

Today however we are not in Lettice’s flat. Rather we are out on London’s busy Oxford Street as Lettice and her soon-to-be-married friend Margot de Virre promenade, safely protected from the summer sunshine, beneath the striped awnings of the impressive classical façade of Selfridges department store. The two ladies plan to enjoy luncheon together in the rooftop garden restaurant before attending to some social rounds in the afternoon as part of the Season.

 

“Well, she sounds like a rather thrilling new client, darling!” Margot enthuses as she strolls alongside her friend. “A successful film actress!”

 

“We hope.” Lettice cautions wagging a gloved finger. “I don’t know how her screen test went yet.”

 

“You said she had presence, darling.”

 

“Oh she does Margot.” Lettice sighs as she looks at the passing parade of passenger faces on a red and cream double decker bus as it chugs noisily past them, belching out fumes. “She is very exuberant and her manners are rather gauche, but then she is an American, and of a rather unremarkable suburban family in Chicago who just happened to have invested in railroads at the right time.”

 

“You’ve done your homework then.”

 

“Not me, so much as Leslie.” Lettice replies as she and Margot step aside to make way for a young man in a smart grey flannel suit stepping out of a taxi pulled up to the curve. “I asked him to make some discreet enquiries with some friends in the Immigration Department.”

 

The ladies smile as the young man doffs his hat to them in greeting and gives them a charming smile before hurrying on his way in the opposite direction to them.

 

“Ah, the joys of a well-connected older brother. Hoorah for Leslie and his chums in the Immigration Department.” Margot sighs. She waits for Lettice to continue, and when for a few languid paces nothing is forthcoming from her friend she adds, “And?”

 

“Oh,” Lettice remarks in a slightly distracted fashion as she pauses to look in one of Selfridges giant plate glass windows, admiring a range of summer frocks in soft pastels. “Well her real name is Isadora Ward. Her parents live in a place called Highland Park, which Leslie assures me is a smart Chicago suburb. She was the tallest debutante in her coming out year and it seems the most unorthodox, wearing a dress a shade of deep pink, a colour similar to that which she wore to visit me, for her coming out gown, much to the horror of mummy, daddy and the staid Chicago social set it seems.”

 

“How deliciously daring!” Margot laughs. “I love your Miss Ward already. Tell me more!”

 

“She isn’t necessarily my Miss Ward yet, Margot. After two unsuccessful seasons of her parents attempting to marry her off to any eligible bachelor they could find, Isadora happily fled America and her parent’s shame of her remaining unmarried, to join her adventurer brother who has a club in Shanghai: The Diamond Lotus.”

 

“Sounds exotic!” Margot remarks.

 

“Rather!” Lettice agrees with a smile. “Reinvented as the songstress Wanetta Ward, she performed to full houses and was, according to Leslie’s sources, wooed by the some rather shady types from amongst Shanghai’s mobster class.”

 

“Thrilling!” Margot gasps. “So, she had to flee to London?”

 

“So it seems, Margot darling, although apparently she was blissfully unaware of her paramours’ less than salubrious backgrounds.”

 

“Or she turned a blind eye.”

 

“Or, she turned a blind eye and enjoyed the champagne, fun times and expensive gifts. She doesn’t strike me as a naive or dim-witted woman. She knows what she wants, and is going about getting it. At any rate, her brother quietly packed her off on the next boat bound for Southampton with a few letters of introduction to some fashionable fellow Americans here in London, and a suitably burgeoning bank balance, to which she adds a cache of mildly gaudy, and I imagine slightly illicit jewellery, from her would be suitors, to start a career as a cinema actress.”

 

“Didn’t your father ask you not to engage your skills with unsuitable characters, Lettice?”

 

“To be precise, Margot, he asked me to,” She opens her mouth and annunciates with overly round vowels in a mocking imitation of her titled father the Viscount, “‘be a society interior designer, but design for my own class’.” She looks to her friend with a lofty look, causing Margot to titter behind her hand.

 

“Oh your mother will be fit to be tied when you take this Miss Ward as your latest client after all that Mrs. Hatchett business earlier in the year.”

 

“If, I take her, Margot darling. I have yet to see her flat in Pimlico.”

 

“Mmm hmmm.” Margot muses with a knowing smile and a cocked eyebrow, returned by her friend as the two burst into peals of cheeky girlish laughter.

 

Smothering her laughter to try and control herself and catch her breath, Lettice finally asks Margot, “Thinking of upsetting mother, has yours finally come around to Gerald designing your wedding dress?”

 

“No she hasn’t. She’s still furious that I wouldn’t countenance Lucile* to make my gown. But she’s so… so…”

 

“Edwardian?”

 

“Exactly darling, and Gerald is so wonderfully modern!” Margot goes on enthusiastically.

 

“I know. I’ve seen your dress coming along when I’ve visited him at his flat. The asymmetrical tulle hem and that beautiful beaded bodice will make you the bride of the Season, darling.”

 

“Thank you, Lettice!”

 

“And my supper party for your engagement is promising to be one of the events of the Season.” Lettice adds proudly. “All the invitations have been dispatched, I’m borrowing some of the family silver from Wiltshire, the flower arrangements are on order, and I have Harrods catering for us. Dickie wants to be barman and make some of his famous cocktails. I can’t wait until… Oh!”

 

Margot watches as the happy smile fades from Lettice’s face as she sees something in the next window of Selfridges which obviously offends her in some way. Stalking over to it, Lettice stands before a smaller window, glaring at its contents with her hands placed firmly on her hips.

 

“Lettice darling! What is it?”

 

Margot gazes into the window, featuring a selection of wide brimmed straw picture hats and accessories promoted for Ascot Week**. Her friend’s disgruntled look is reflected in a ghostly way in the plate glass.

 

“I must speak to Madame Gwendolyn! Just look at those prices! Five pounds, nine and sixpence for that pink hat, or the yellow. I’ve paid twelve guineas for my white hat for this year’s Royal Ascot!”

 

“Oh come Lettice,” Margot laughs incredulously. “You can hardly compare the beautiful hats Madame Gwendolyn makes for you, to these hats for the,” She pauses whilst she tries to think of the right words. “The up-and-coming middle-classes.”

 

“You’ve been listening to Gerald, Margot,” Lettice scolds her friend good naturedly in a lowered tone. “You sound just like him.”

 

“Well, it’s true, Lettice. Your hats are all so much more striking than these: much more suitable for the Royal Enclosure. No-one else will have a hat like yours, whereas who knows how many of these there are in circulation.” Margot soothes, waving her hand dismissively at the offending millinery. “Leave these to the London parvenues.”

 

“Like cinema actress, Wanetta Ward?”

 

“Exactly!” Margot giggles. “Now, come along, darling! Let’s have luncheon and we’ll chat about what we are wearing to Ascot, Henley and Goodwood.”

 

“And your wedding, darling.”

 

“And my wedding.”

 

The two young women link arms and walk towards the entrance of the department store, joining countless other shoppers as they drift through the doors of Selfridges.

 

*Lucile – Lucy, Lady Duff Gordon was a leading British fashion designer in the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries who used the professional name Lucile. She was the originator of the “mannequin parade”, a pre-cursor to the modern fashion parade, and is reported to have been the person to first use the word “chic” which she then popularised. Lucile is also infamous for escaping the Titanic in a lifeboat designed for forty occupants with her husband and secretary and only nine other people aboard, seven being crew members.

 

**Royal Ascot Week is the major social calendar event held in June every year at Ascot Racecourse in Berkshire. It was founded in 1711 by Queen Anne and is attended every year by the reigning British monarch and members of the Royal Family. The event is grand and showy, with men in grey morning dress and silk toppers and ladies in their best summer frocks and most elaborate hats.

 

Contrary to popular belief, fashion at the beginning of the Roaring 20s did not feature the iconic cloche hat as a commonly worn head covering. Although invented by French milliner Caroline Reboux in 1908, the cloche hat did not start to gain popularity until 1922, so in 1921 when this story is set, picture hats, a hangover from the pre-war years, were still de rigueur in fashionable society. Although nowhere near as wide, heavy, voluminous or as ornate as the hats worn by women between the turn of the Twentieth Century and the Great War, the picture hats of the 1920s were still wide brimmed, although they were generally made of straw or some lightweight fabric and were decorated with a more restrained touch. For somewhere like Royal Ascot, a matching parasol, handbag or reticule and gloves to go with a lady’s chosen summer frock were essential.

 

Although this window display of ladies’ accessories looks very real, the fact is that the items on sale are all miniatures from my 1:12 miniatures collection.

 

1:12 size miniature hats made to such exacting standards of quality and realism are often far more expensive than real hats are. When you think that it would sit comfortably on the tip of your index finger, yet it could cost in excess of $150.00 or £100.00, it is an extravagance. American artists seem to have the monopoly on this skill and some of the hats that I have seen or acquired over the years are remarkable.

 

Fun things to look for in this tableau include:

 

The straw hats decorated with lace, pink ribbons and roses, and yellow ribbons and roses were made by Mrs. Denton of Muffin Lodge in the United Kingdom. Their matching parasols, also made by Mrs. Denton of Muffin Lodge, are decorated with lace and ribbons and have a toothpicks as handles with metal tops. All are hand-made artisan miniatures.

 

The peach straw hat with the orange and green ribbon and brown feather trim comes from Falcon Miniatures in the United States, who are renowned for their realistic 1:12 size miniatures.

 

The mossy green straw hat with purple roses has single stands of peacock feathers adorning it that have been hand curled. The maker is unknown, but it is part of a larger collection I bought from an American miniature collector Marilyn Bickel. Also purchased from her collection is the little hand-crocheted pale pink reticule with the tassel.

 

The lemon yellow purse and matching gloves are also artisan pieces and are made of kid leather and are so light and soft. They are trimmed with very fine braid and the purse has a clasp made from a piece of earring. They come from Doreen Jeffries’ Small Wonders Miniatures in the United Kingdom.

 

The dark wood hatstands are also 1:12 size miniatures and are of three varying heights. Made of wood, they have been stained in mahogany.

 

The tags with descriptions and prices I created using a 1921 mail order catalogue for ladies’ accessories.

 

The backdrop of the window display is “Derby Day at Epsom”, a painting by British author, painter and children’s illustrator John Strickland Goodall (1908 – 1996) taken from his picture book “An Edwardian Season” published in 1979.

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