It is 1910. The first year of a new decade. in a nice mid-terrace house ‘Mrs Average’, a nice middle-aged, middle-class woman, is getting dressed for the day.

This will take some time.

To the modern eye, Edwardian-era fashions evoke awe and admiration. Viewing photographs and fashion prints we might remark on how stylish the women look, how feminine. A closer look at the layers that make up a basic daytime ensemble gives an idea of the way in which women were physically hampered by their clothes as well as socially constrained by the need to look respectable.

We begin with underwear… and there’s plenty of it.

Ladies who could afford high-end lingerie from fashion houses indulged in luxurious confections of silk crêpe de Chine, light georgette or lace. For warmth and hygiene, wool next to the skin was recommended; for economy, flannelette. Undergarments in white cotton were by far the most common, perhaps with pretty touches of ribbon or broderie anglaise. For the first layer, there was a choice of chemise and drawers, or combinations.

The chemise – also known as a shift or a ‘shimmy’ – was the forerunner of today’s vest. it was considered rather outmoded in the pre-war years, although for many centuries it had been obligatory wear for women, corresponding to the shirt for men. The humbler chemise was made of plain homespun linen or sturdy cotton. Fancier versions were of a light cotton lawn with lace trimmings at the throat. Shaped like a generous T-shirt reaching the knees, the main purpose of the chemise was to protect the subsequent layers of clothes and to soak up perspiration – highly necessary in an age before commercial deodorants. Sturdy French seams enabled the chemise to survive repeated and vigorous washing. inked or embroidered initials meant undies didn’t get lost at the laundry.

Drawers were shaped like feminine knee breeches. They were usually split at the crotch to enable the wearer to use the toilet with the least fuss possible, although modern women who attempt this may find it a rather hit-and-miss affair, even on a fitted WC. Hovering over a chamber pot required quite a knack with fabric management, as well as strong thighs. Even more awkward to cope with was an Edwardian innovation in drawers… new models stitched at the crotch. This was said to signify greater dignity for women, but surely it meant also a greater inconvenience.

Far more common than chemise or drawers in 1910 were wool or cotton combinations. These generally unbuttoned down the front and were either straight-legged or delightfully gathered and frilled and scattered with embellishments. Without a split at the crotch, anyone wearing combinations required a complete removal of all layers for lavatory purposes.

Worse is to follow. In the privacy of her bedroom our nice middle-class lady next laces herself into a corset, also known as a pair of stays.

Corset designs changed to suit whatever shape fashion demanded, and a woman’s body changed shape with it. When the silhouette required was of a graceful Grecian curve, the ‘S’ bend corset distorted the spine, thrusting out the bosom and the posterior. in the years just preceding the war, the new Directoire line called for a column effect. This corset confined the thighs more and dropped lower under the bust, eventually requiring the invention of the brassiere.

Made of sturdy coutil cotton, which kept its shape well, or satin, or even denim, corsets were stiffened with sprung steels, designed to give better movement than old-fashioned whalebone. The steels sometimes stopped short of the lower hem, generously enabling the wearer to sit or bend with care.

Discomfort aside, very few women dared abandon their stays and those who did could be ridiculed as frumpy or unwomanly. Corsets ensured that closely cut clothes hung well. They smoothed contours and corrected bad posture. All in all, corsets controlled wobble, supported the stockings via suspenders and satisfied anxious hypochondriacs by keeping the kidneys warm.

From 1906 the famous Liberty bodice was available for young girls. itchy when warm and unbearable when hot, the bodice came complete with steels, as a miniature version of adult stays. Girls were therefore trained to confinement from an early age.

The layers continue for our middleclass lady getting dressed.

A cotton corset cover was required to hide the bust and keep the steels from showing under outer garments; also, the skirt had to be given shape by several petticoats, which were fluted to follow fashionable lines and made of flannel, wool, cotton or silk.

In theatre historian Walter MacQueen-Pope’s memoirs of the prewar period, he reminisces, “Women wore many petticoats and the better off they were the more they wore of them. They gave her poise and balance.” He approved of the fact that “skirts were long, mostly they swept the ground”. Not entirely dismissive of practicality he admired the way that, on rainy days, a woman “by a knack and a feminine form of hitch would manage to bring her skirts just off the mud and wet” Apparently, if she lifted them too high, “rude men stared, bus conductors cheered and the woman herself beat a hasty, humiliated retreat”.

The women themselves were not so pleasantly nostalgic. Gwen Raverat’s memoirs crackle with anger at the time wasted by needing to brush mud off long-hemmed walking skirts – “there can be no more futile job imposed by an idiotic convention, than that of perpetual skirt-brushing” – not to mention the mending required when hems become torn or worn. Cunning metal skirt lifters were one ingenious answer to the problems of long skirts, since it would take a world war before shorter hems could be considered.

The final layer was a one-piece dress or two-piece suit. The jacket was always worn over a blouse that could have a variety of fussy details such as lace inserts, pin-tucks, ruffles and embroidery, unless a more masculine style was being adopted – popular from the 1890s onwards – in which case a shirt and tie replaced the blouse, and the tailoring of the suit would be more severe. Colours, fabric and cut depended on the season, on personal taste and on fashion’s whim. These outer garments were often heavy to wear, certain to stain and difficult to clean.

For added awkwardness, the truly fashionable lady could adopt a peculiar trend known as the ‘hobble’, either with a narrow ribbon binding the outside of an exaggeratedly narrow sheath skirt, or with a ‘hobble garter’ buckled around the top of the calves to ensure the wearer could only take dainty halfsteps. Lampooned in the popular press, the fact that hobble skirts were so popular illustrates how contrary fashion can be – promoting extreme styles over practicality. At a time when the fight for female emancipation was becoming so prominent, fashionable ladies deliberately chose skirts that narrowed their stride, as if hankering for the bound feet of traditional Chinese women. As ever, this sort of hobbling could only be worn by women whose chief purpose was to be decorative, so it served to show distinction from those unable to afford such leisurely luxury, or unwilling to be bound by it.

The dressing doesn’t stop here. A hat was essential and, in 1910, often of vast dimensions – a veritable cartwheel size – loaded with feathers and flowers, then skewed onto rolled and padded hair with a monstrous hat pin.

Gloves were a social and practical necessity, keeping the hands clean and the wearer free from criticism about slovenly dressing. Crocheted short gloves for summer; gauntlets for driving; kid leather for evening wear … the etiquette for gloves was complex and expensive.

Footwear, at least, was practical for daytime walking, if one overlooked the time-consuming task of hooking the buttons on calf-length boots, or the danger of stockings getting dirty when worn with low-fronted shoes.

In cold weather, women wore thick coats and the best quality furs they could afford, wrapped as stoles or carried as muffs. Furs were also a sign of conspicuous consumption, with mink and ermine clearly superior to modest coney or squirrel. in summer, a veil and parasol protected a genteel complexion from sunburn. Since women’s clothes were often lamentably short of practical pockets, handbags enjoyed great popularity.

And so our nice middle-class lady surveys herself in the full-length looking glass. in all, the total weight of her clothes and accessories might amount to, at minimum, 10lb at least twice as much as that of a modern woman’s outfit. This then is the basic feminine ideal for the pre-war years, and thus Mrs Average – a rather simple stereotype – heads off to visit friends, or to do a spot of shopping.