1908 dress code

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dessert said:
Was that with the corset or without?
Here is a site for the OP too.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwardian

from Wiki I think the fashion was after the Victorian age and women in general were getting into more sports so for the OP you don’t have to wear a corset, I’ll bet she is relieved :clapping: 😉
Don’t forget to tell the men to tip their hat. 👍
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Nobody will know about the corset but in 1908 no “lady” would have considered herself dressed without one. Corset-rejecting" Freethinkers" were not considered “ladies.”
 
ladies wore nylons and nice dresses but not fancy.

Nylon wasn’t invented until 1935, and there were no nylon stockings until 1940, so ladies would not have worn them in 1908.
 
bpbasilphx said:
ladies wore nylons and nice dresses but not fancy.

Nylon wasn’t invented until 1935, and there were no nylon stockings until 1940, so ladies would not have worn them in 1908.
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The post you have quoted referred to the actual memory of the person who wrote it – not to fashion in 1908. Probably more like 1948. Before the war, women wore silk stockings.
 
How neat!

That would be so fun!

How about simple modest dresses, kind of like the Amish wear, with petticoat and a bonnet. They would be easy to sew.

God bless!

Dana
 
DJgang said:
How neat!

That would be so fun!

How about simple modest dresses, kind of like the Amish wear, with petticoat and a bonnet. They would be easy to sew.

God bless!

Dana
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But it would have very little to do with how most people actually dressed in 1908 – unless you’re Amish.
 
KMark said:
This is an Italian parish in New York, about 50+ miles north of the City next to the Hudson River. An added note of interest: Mother Cabrini would come to our parish to work with the italian immigrants. She stayed in a house adjacent to our church property. The church used to own it but sold it many years ago when it needed money.

Since I knew that my head would be covered, I had by default thought of a veil Then I wondered if this was indeed true. A hat is probably the way to go.
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that was the reason behind my question, an ethnic parish might have had different customs, certainly a black veil was worn by many older married, or widowed Italian women even up into the 50s and 60s when we lived in an Italian parish. or babushkas with some Eastern European immigrants

what a great idea, if you could have some tie in with Mother Cabrini-one of my personal heroes.

how about a project to get current and former parishioners to bring in copies of photos of church events from that era, weddings, communions, etc.
 
I’m having a problem here. Maybe someone can help me. This sounds like the parish is turning the anniversary liturgy into a costume party with liturgy included.

Fraternally,

JR 🙂
 
DJgang said:
okay, I’m having a brain fart 😛 , mennonites? Who are the one’s that dress in floral dresses with bonnets? Prairie dresses? Would that be 1908s?
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yes a town say in Oklahoma that would still be practically frontier in 1908 might have seen calico dresses and sun bonnets for daily wear, but women of any means at all would have made an attempt to copy something from Godey’s Ladies book or Ladies Home Journal and gotten a pattern to make a Sunday dress and hat, or ordered an ensemble from Sears and Roebuck or Montgomery Ward (delivered no doubt by the Wells Fargo wagon). A woman’s wedding dress (seldom white, usually a more practical color and fabric, like Laura Ingall’s black) would have been her “good” dress for many, many years.

Immigrant women, depending on country of origin, would have likely clung to styles of their homeland at least for the first generation, although those in the cities, especially unmarried girls and women working in the garment factories, as so many Italians did, would have been quicker to copy the fashions of the day.
 
JReducation said:
I’m having a problem here. Maybe someone can help me. This sounds like the parish is turning the anniversary liturgy into a costume party with liturgy included.

Fraternally,

JR 🙂
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Hey, at least everyone might be dressed modestly!
 
puzzleannie said:
probably only in Spain or Mexico
women in that era almost univesally wore HATS outside the home, whether going to church, shopping, or visiting. actually depending on what part of the country, and rural or urban, that was the time of transition between “bonnets” and “hats”. go on any historic fashion website and see the styles of the era. was your parish home to an ethnic group? there could be clues there too. try your local historical society for help in this area

in this country, mantillas or chapel veils were worn widely when secular fashions began to change and the hat no longer became a standard part of apparel for women outside the home.
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I’ve also noticed that mantillas/chapel veils seem very common among “traditionalists” who are not of Spanish or Mexican descent. In the EF chapel I attended a couple weeks ago, I noticed that every woman was wearing one, and it was not in a predominantly hispanic area, either. When my grandmother was growing up with the Latin Mass, the women always wore hats, or maybe a bonnet or cloth if they came from a poor family.

Was there a solid hispanic “core” of traditionalists following Vatican II? I know the SSPX originated in France - are mantillas/chapel veils a French tradition as well? I realize this may be a little off-topic, but its something I’ve always been curious about.
 
JReducation said:
I’m having a problem here. Maybe someone can help me. This sounds like the parish is turning the anniversary liturgy into a costume party with liturgy included.

Fraternally,

JR 🙂
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I don’t get that feeling at all. it sounds like a way to enter into the experience of Mass at that time period, which is no different than celebrating in the EF, with dress, music et al appropriate to that.

it this turns into a headcovering debate I am outta here. already discussed why mantillas were worn and when, why --where is the dead horse smiley for heavensake?
 
mercygate said:
Nobody will know about the corset but in 1908 no “lady” would have considered herself dressed without one. Corset-rejecting" Freethinkers" were not considered “ladies.”
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Lighten up a little Mercy.
 
bpbasilphx said:
ladies wore nylons and nice dresses but not fancy.

Nylon wasn’t invented until 1935, and there were no nylon stockings until 1940, so ladies would not have worn them in 1908.
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Well tights have been around a long time and yes the first ladies stockings were maybe made of silk but I think most were knitted very fine knitting of cotton.
 
JReducation said:
I’m having a problem here. Maybe someone can help me. This sounds like the parish is turning the anniversary liturgy into a costume party with liturgy included.

Fraternally,

JR 🙂
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This is a fair concern. After all, the liturgical abuses we hear about, and have been hearing about, are heartbreaking. Not knowing our parish, and your obvious love of the liturgy, this is an honest question.
I wish you could know how adamant our pastor is about following the rubrics. I wish you could know how our DRE constantly sends out written reminders to each individual teenager about dress code for youth events. I wish you could see how much we love to sing in Latin. We are currently moving toward the psalm tones and want to move away from protestant hymns. Our pastor is not a fan of GIA. He says that any communion hymn that refers to “bread” is heresy and we should not be singing them. I wish you could know the “core” parishioners - you know, the “20%” in every parish who keep things going - who love the liturgy as much as we all in the Catholic Answers forum do.
Rather than it being a costume party with liturgy thrown in, it is the liturgy, first and foremost, with people dressed modestly. I agree with previous posters that it will be nice to attend Mass with the people around me dressed in more than spaghetti straps, tank tops and cut off shorts.
This is also the first of many things planned for the anniversary. This is not the primary 100th celebration mass. There will be another in the church. This commemorates the first mass said after the immigrants got off the boat, so to speak, 100 years ago.

I have learned a lot from everyone. Thanks for your help.
 
I grew up in a Polish/Slavic community and to Mass most of the women either wore hats (normally the “younger” generation at that time) or a simple headscarf tied under the chin for the 50-something and overs. This scarf was known as a babushka, after the Russian word for “grandmother.” A lace head covering (mantilla style) might be worn only at a very formal occasion in the church. I have pictures of my family (back in the Old Country) from the 1908 era and that’s the same way they dressed then, too. The fancy Victorian apparel was worn by a different economic class than what were my ancestors.
 
Immigrants in this country who descended from Northern Europeans tended more toward hats, while Southern Europeans, particularly in Spain, France and Italy, preferred mantillas. Eastern Europeans wore scarves.

Of course, all of these were also heavily tied into socio-economic status, as well. Southern and Eastern European immigrants who came here tended to be working class, meaning that the upper classes back home tended to dressee differently.
 
The lacey mantilla only became popular in my parish in the '60s. Before that it was hats or headscarves which we called kerchiefs. Then the mantilla and the tiny tied-on kerchief became popular because you could shove 'em in your purse or pocket and always have them available.
 
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