Your Wardrobe Unlock'd

Janyce Hill of the Vintage Pattern Lending Library tells us all about her ambitious archival project, showing us a few of her patterns.

This month we publish the runner up in our essay contest.

Transitional eras fascinate me. In times of rapid social and technological change, what people wear changes dramatically as fashion collides with reality.

One such era is the early 20th Century. The years ending 1914 were named La Belle Epoque as people looked back wistfully upon the era. The graceful long gowns, the carriages, the attentive servants, all faded into autumnal memory after the Great War.