I can't believe I haven't been here before you know!
I know, it's a little bit ridiculous isn't it?
Oh wow!
Gosh this is quite a place isn't it?
Oh look it’s all marquetry, it's like scenes from your holidays look - Florence, Venice...
Hi I'm Ruth Goodman and this is my daughter Eve.
Hello!
And we are here at Eltham Palace in order to have a look at some 1930s women's clothes.
It's a really interesting moment when clothes changed utterly and become much easier to
wear and cheaper to buy.
Ready to wear off the peg, in the shops for the very first time.
It's also the point when synthetic fabrics are suddenly becoming such a huge thing, so
suddenly people can go out and buy something that looks and feels like silk but it’s
not, it’s so much cheaper because it’s completely synthetic and that's really exciting.
This is a very elegant bedroom don't you think?
Yeah it's beautiful isn't it.
A great place to look at clothes!
Okay so shall we move on to the clothes?
Yeah go for the clothes.
Shall I go first?
Yep, you go first.
Okay so this is Susan.
She's in our gorgeous evening wear.
Okay ready?
Oh this is elegant isn't it?
She's great isn't she?
Absolutely fantastic.
It's just harking back to the whole classicist movement...
Greek...very Greek column like.
She's just absolutely wonderful with beautiful bias cut with the reverse patterning to...
To give that movement so it flows and hugs the body.
Exactly!
That sort of flow of the female form and the fact that it is long and elegant.
I'm thinking of the word statuesque because I do feel quite statuesque.
Yeah exactly.
Give us a twirl Susan go on give us a twirl.
Oh look at that, oh look at the back!
It's almost like a little train as you were moving that really gives you this nice shape
you know?
So this is what we all aspire to on our evening out!
Yes if I could look like that every night out I definitely would.
I think I'll take this home actually.
Wear it always?
Yes thank you!
Oh look at that!
That's fantastic!
Dressed nice and warm give us a twirl Sonia go on...
Nice and warm in your hat and coat and would you mind taking the coat off?
Would that be acceptable?
Let's have a look and see what you are...wow!
That looks great!
Let me help, let me help.
Thank you.
Wow look at that!
Knitwear.
It's all about the knitwear.
You see at no other time in history had knitwear ever been considered high fashion it had always
been underwear, socks woolly vests.
It had always been very practical and largely hidden.
20s and 30s knitwear is king.
And one of the most exciting things about knitwear was that you could produce it yourself
at home and it becomes a greatest new leisure activity of the 20s and 30s was to do your
own knitting.
Knitting patterns were selling in there thousands in fact if you had a woman’s magazine you
could not sell the magazine if didn't have good knitting patterns.
And it was being done not by the old grannies, but by the youngsters - the people who wanted
fashion.
The 19 - 20 year olds - they're the ones knitting and they are nice simple shapes that will
drape elegantly.
And weren't earlier periods in history missing a trick in not using knitwear as an outer
garment.
It is so versatile, it is warm compared to a lot of other materials and it is just wonderful.
Time for Vanessa!
This bit is exciting!
Come on in and lets have a little look at you.
Oh it looks great.
This is nice isn't it!
Really nice.
So this is a really practical garment and the 1920s and 30s are a moment - particularly
in the 30s when people are needing to do their housework perhaps more people are needing
to do their housework than had ever done before because it was getting harder and harder and
harder to get servants, but they didn't want to look like a servant!
No!
You mustn’t look like a servant.
No, as a housewife - being a housewife is a good respectable good thing to be, being
a servant - less so.
So its deliberately a practical garment for doing housework in that does not look like
a servants uniform.
Exactly.
But it was important to people, people felt very strongly that they were trying to put
an image out of being a lady of leisure - everybody knew really that you and your neighbours were
all doing the washing up and scrubbing the floors and dealing with everything in the
morning.
But come an afternoon you could like pretend...
Everybody wanted to look like Margot!
That's what it is!
They all wanted to sort of like buy into a little bit of that lady of leisure thing and
a housecoat let you do that - you put it on and work - whip it off "Oh I look immaculate
again".
Great clothes!
Amazing!
Absolutely amazing.
Can we stay?
No, they'll lock us in my dear!
Oh you are so cruel to me!
You never let me do the fun things.