The Edwardian Sartorialist in Paris
French street style, over 100 years ago
Amanda Uren
June 1906
Charles Linley Sambourne was a chief cartoonist for Punch, a British satirical magazine, and a keen amateur photographer. He photographed ordinary people, documenting their appearance as references for his cartoons.He photographed women in London in 1906, and in June of the same year, the 62-year-old Sambourne traveled to Paris in search of more material. The women he photographed in France were more elaborately dressed than those he saw in London, but these photographs seem to be taken in more formal surroundings, where women may have been expected to "dress up." At the time, Paris was establishing itself as the home of European high fashion. Wealthy and titled women in Britain and elsewhere turned to Paris for their "seasonal" wardrobes. (Court, public and sporting events that characterised the British social calendar.) Despite their differences, both Parisian and British women enjoyed a variety of styles, particularly a wide variation in skirt lengths and materials. They were at ease with the fashionably tight corsets of the time, as demonstrated by a young friend of Sambourne's, Madame Helen DuBois (below).
