Counting Virginia Woolf among their number, the Bloomsbury group were radical creative figures in the early 20th Century. A new exhibition explores how that extended to their wardrobes too, writes Holly Williams.
"Vain trifles as they seem, clothes have, they say, more important offices than merely to keep us warm. They change our view of the world and the world's view of us." So wrote Virginia Woolf in her 1928 novel Orlando, about a young nobleman who lives for several centuries, changing sex along the way.Woolf often uses Orlando's changes in clothing to say something about the changing times and gender expectations they live under.
A portrait of Bloomsbury group member Lady Ottoline Morrell, who was famous for her alternative fashions Dior Men's summer 2023 collection was inspired by the artist Duncan Grant and the house and garden at Charleston Yet we still have a tendency to get things about them wrong. It is true, for instance, that Woolf and Bell did float around in waistless, longline, drapey garms. But the entrenched idea that these were always in muted tones – mauves and sage, brown and dulled blues seems to be, at least in part, due to assumptions derived from the fact that they were always photographed in black and white.
So, what were the Bloomsberries rejecting, and reacting against? The term"restrictive clothing" isn't an exaggeration. Woolf and Bell grew up in an era, and in a class, where they still had to dress for dinner, and were expected to spend their evenings at society parties that they loathed. Dressing correctly was paramount, and for young women this involved wearing stays – boned corsets – underneath full length, often lavish dresses.
Their brother Thoby began bringing over friends from Cambridge, and the Bloomsbury group formed during Thursday evening get-togethers. These were deliberately informal:"It was late at night; the room was full of smoke; buns, coffee and whisky were strewn about; we were not wearing white satin or seed pearls; we were not dressed at all," wrote Woolf.
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