Golden Age of Travel Dream Birthday -- Wardrobe Planning

by admin February 14, 2012

← This is my period help. Volume two of Harmony in Dress published in 1924 by the Women's Institute Library of Dressmaking in good ol' Scranton, PA and their guiding light, Ms. Mary Brooks Picken. Mary Brooks Picken deserves some of the spotlight here. Born in 1886, she founded the Women's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences in Scranton, PA. She was the first woman to be named a trustee of the Fashion Institute of Technology. She was a member of the National Academy of Sciences National Research Council Advisory Committee on Women's Clothing that selected Hattie Carnegie as the designer of the United States Army's women's uniform and provided advice and assistance on all elements of the women's uniform beginning in 1949. And if that weren't enough, she was the first female author of a dictionary in the English language -- The Fashion Dictionary in 1957. She has ninety-six books to her credit, all of them about sewing and the needle arts, most of them written in the 1910s, 1920s, and early 1930s and therefore very useful to our purpose. These are not etiquette books written for the upper crust, but rather how-to texts written for women who would be making rather than buying or ordering their wardrobes. From my perspective, Mary Brooks Picken has given me a how-to book for my Dream Birthday Trip.

Now let's dive into this... Among chapters on Good Taste, Charm in Dress, the Right Underclothes, and Overcoming Irregularities in Figure, there is a extremely valuable section called "Planning Wardrobes". And it is to that section that this post will mostly refer.

Along with lists of the proper clothes for a young school girl as well as a collegiate miss, there are sections on wardrobe essentials for both homemaker and business woman. Of course the Trousseau is covered beautifully. There is also a section "Clothes for Traveling". Furthermore, the darling woman has broken them down further into lists By Train, By Boat, and By Automobile, taking into consideration the different situations of luggage accommodation as well as social occasion involved in each. Oh goodie, goodie, goodie! While she doesn't say so emphatically, it appears that the list is meant to accommodate a week of travel. The list calls for a coat, 2 dark silk dresses or 1 dark silk dress and a suit, 1 semi-formal dress, 1 hat for traveling, 1 larger hat for dress-up frocks, 4 sets of undergarments, 1 slip, 1 pair bloomers, 4 to 6 pairs of hose, 3 or 4 nightgowns or sets of pyjamas, a kimono or "Pullman" robe, 2 pairs of slippers for daily wear, 1 pair of pumps, 1 pair bedroom slippers, 1 pair of overshoes, 1 pair service gloves, 1 pair dress gloves, handkerchiefs, 1 scarf of silk, wool or fur, 1 umbrella, 1 generously-sized purse, another dark wool dress, a heavy coat, and an evening gown, dark in colour and conservative in cut. Okay. Well. Hmmm... Not exactly the glamourous period wardrobe I envisioned. So let's toss out the list! What we need to do is count the travel days, count the different occasions for which I'll need to dress, and then figure out what is appropriate to wear on those occasions. You with me? Cunard has rearranged its website a bit, so I'm not finding a list of evening entertainments by journey. Typically, the dinners on the first and last night of the trip (in this case, October 2nd, 7th, 14th and 20th) are informal. The rest of the dinners are formal. On Transatlantic Crossings, they have what they call "Royal Nights" which are themed balls. When I was last on QM2, there was a Black and White Ball and a Buccaneers' Ball, but I think the Buccaneers' Ball is only on Caribbean trips. I've heard mention of the Royal Ascot Ball and the Masquerade Ball, but I have no idea if these occur on every Transatlantic Crossing. I'll have to find out. I couldn't be caught without something Black and White or *GASP* a costume for the Masquerade! Plus one formal dinner on the Orient Express. So that's:

nine formal dinner gowns
four informal dinner dresses

There may need to be different dresses for dancing if some of the evening gowns won't accommodate dancing. And if there are special themed Balls, there will definitely be different gowns for each theme. Then I'll need something to wear to board each conveyance:

three boarding suits with matching hats

And day dresses to wearing during the day:

twelve day dresses

There also need to be lounging outfits. There is a lot of lounging on a Transatlantic Crossing.

five lounging outfits

Then there's sleepwear:

twelve nightgowns or pyjama suits

And underwear... and stockings... and slips... and... and... and... My God! What have I gotten myself into!?!?! *faints* Tomorrow: You gotta start somewhere!