History's Runway: The Firbank Day Dress, 1912-14

Day Dress
Britain, 1912-14
This and all related images from:
The Victoria & Albert Museum

This day dress shows the simple, elegant attire worn by a young woman at the seaside in the 1910s. The dress once belonged to Miss Heather Firbank—the daughter of the affluent Member of Parliament Sir Thomas Firbank and sister of the novelist Ronald Firbank.

With its simple collar and spotted cravat, the dress demonstrates the innocence of pre-World War I Britain’s feminine fashions when cravats and foulards adapted from menswear dominated designs for dresses and blouses.

In August 1912, “The Queen” magazine wrote of:

“the prettiest style of Robespierre collar, finishing with a Latin Quartier cravat of blue and white birds-eye spot silk.”

This is just one piece of the historical wardrobe of Heather Firbank whose many gowns and dresses were packed into trunks in 1921. They remained hidden in these trunks in storage for over thirty-five years until 1960 when the V&A acquired well over one hundred items from her wardrobe. Today, this collection remains one of the most important assortments of the kinds of garments worn by a fashionable and wealthy young woman between 1905 and 1920. Miss Firbank’s wardrobe was the centerpiece of a 1960 exhibition entitled “Lady of Fashion.”