The Sartorial Adventures of Edith, Schoolgirl, c. 1926

Many years ago I purchased a handful of packets of old photographs in a store that sold all sorts of ephemera. Snatched from hundreds of family coffers and thrown into an enormous box all higgledy-piggledy are these early twentieth century Australian memories. Yesterday whilst rummaging around in my storage room, I found the album I had stored them in.

This young lady of the 1920s (whom I shall call Edith) has kindly left for posterity documentation of her summer and winter sartorial choices.

Here is Edith on her way to the tennis club, sensibly attired in her calf-length tennis dress, white bobby socks and possibly plimsolls. She has not forgotten her hat to shield her complexion from the harsh Australian sunlight. It promises to be a fine day, and she is determined today to beat Bert hollow! 

A few months later Edith is off for a country stroll with her sweetheart Bert, again coat sensibly belted, with thick stockings under her skirt to keep her warm (and socks under those beige stockings!); a knitted beret covers her bobbed hair. Nor is there any nonsense about her flat mary-janes. Her one concession to fashionable frivolity: gauntlets with enormous embroidered cuffs! The cold snap however does not daunt her good spirits.

And here is Edith once more, far left, with her schoolfriends Betty and Catherine, sitting on a wicker couch on her back porch. They are all school prefects together, and quite grown up now. Despite the uniformity of their school dress, and the fact they all wear a bob, they manage to keep a point of difference: Edith sweeps her fringe to one side, Betty lifts her bob with a few curls, and Cathy keeps her bangs quite straight. They are going to be friends forever!