Ladies Coat Suits

Ladies coat suits started arriving on the scene around 1909. It provided a sleek and slimmer design from the bustles and frilly laces of the past. In essence, ladies coat suits would later pave the way for the death of laces, flounces, bustles and corsets from the old empire days. A nice coat suit with and wide-brimmed hat with plumed feathers sticking from the brim made Edwardian fashion really stand out in fashion history. Ladies coat suits would later set the standard for the professional woman who demanded voting rights in the 1920s. Ladies coat suits was actually controversial for its day considering the lingering, entrenched gender roles that had kept women in uncomfortable corsets and crinolines from the old Victorian era. However, it should be noted that most of the complaints came from men who believed that coat suits was not feminine enough.

Ladies coat suits symbolized the new woman of the twentieth century, educated, working yet still retaining a sense of class and sophistication. It was from the 1909 onward that the old dresses started to wane. Ladies coat suits was the first to touch on the modern woman who desired to be comfortable and professional. There would be later variations on the ladies coat suits later in the twentieth century. The coats would become shorter along with the dresses, but the frame of ladies coats suits can be seen in both 1930s and 1940s fashion and it was the late Edwardian period that set the stage for fashion as we know it today.