Today's race-going damsels (pictured) dress gaily and extravagantly for Melbourne's spring racing carnival. But 100 years ago today the Town and Country Journal found the previous Saturday's 1914 Caulfield Cup fashions spoiled by the war and the weather.
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"CAULFIELD CUP. A MODISTIC DISAPPOINTMENT."
"The Caulfield Cup of 1914 will surely be remembered as the "dowdy Cup," for few can recall one that was worse dressed.
"We expected quiet dressing ... for the feeling [with a war on] is all against any extravagance in dress just now.
"There are several reasons to account for the dowdy aspect of the dressing. The bleak and unseasonable weather was one big factor; also a large proportion of our society women and leaders of fashion elected to stay away.
"We generally look to the Caulfield Cup for our first glimpse of the real summer fashions, but they were not there this year ... There were a few in [pretty] summer frocks, but if they had not warm coats to cover them they were glad to remain sitting in the most sheltered corner of the stand, to try and escape the biting wind.
"We have heard much of the coming of the Botticelli silhouette and the many-seamed bodice, but they did not materialise at Caulfield. There were a good many long tunics, several kilted tunics, which look graceful in soft materials but rather clumsy in the thicker fabrics.
"The skirts seemed just as narrow as ever, and under the long tunics, especially if they were a little full, had quite a trousers effect."