Clara's 1915 Layered Dress

In the 1910s, shaped silhouettes and clingy, flowing material were all the rage, as the Art Nouveau movement finally began to influence fashion designs. Art Nouveau was an artistic style with very romantic subjects, flowing lines, and stylized florals. Asian influences added to the flowing nature of fashions in the 1910s. You can see similarities between this week's dress and two others from the same decade: a Sailor Dress and a Long Tunic.

Layered skirts came into fashion, and Clara’s 1915 dress is one example of the layered style, with three soft layers in the skirt. A wide, drapy yoke covers most of a loose shirtwaist – maybe otherwise known as a blousy top.The high neck is decorated with a pretty lace collar, and the belt also has a decorative floral brooch.

During the 1910s, hats lost some of the excessive trim so popular in the preceding decade. Simpler hats came into style, with the rims starting out wide, and ending up pretty narrow by the end of the decade. Clara’s hat is a simple wide-brimmed felt hat trimmed with an ostrich feather, worn on an angle.

For footwear, many styles of shoes were worn in this decade. Slippers, strappy shoes, and high heels were popular. Clara's shoes this week are tall boots, which continued to be in style through the 1910s.

To print Clara's outfit, use this PDF file:
Clara's Dress 34 (788k)

Clara is a free, printable paper doll. Clara will continue to be available on this blog as long as I post new fashion pages for her. You can read the introduction for the Clara paper doll here.

To print the Clara paper doll, use this PDF file:
The Clara Paper Doll (745k)