‘GREAT War” and “fashion” together in a book title seems, at first, to jar. Something so grim paired with something we still think of as frivolous. But really, fashion, as in the clothes we wear, is just another fascinating way of viewing history.

“Every time we get dressed, the clothes we choose to put on say something about us,” says writer Lucy Adlington. “A reflection of who we are and our place in the world and the times we live in.”

Lucy, from York, is founder of The History Wardrobe – a brilliant piece of theatre in which she and colleagues reveal unexpected insights into times past by exploring the clothes of the time. And after all the millions of words poured out about the 1914-18 war in this, its centenary year, she still finds plenty new and fascinating to say. Largely because it’s about women and all classes of women, the clothes they wore and why they wore them – from serviceable trousers to outfits that could cost thousands.

While history is strong on war and weapons and medals and what chaps were up to, it still largely ignores the other half of the population. But women’s clothes tell a whole new story. Clothes and fashion offer insights into the overlooked domestic details that make up ordinary life. They also bear evidence of extraordinary political events, technological innovation and social revolution.

“They are symbolic of so much yet so utterly recognisably human that even a century later we can admire a shoe and wonder who wore it and where to,” says Lucy.

And it wasn’t really like Downton Abbey.

“Downton is a TV show,” says Lucy. “It’s a fantasy, far from real life and the clothes are divine. Reality was a lot more complex.”

Before the war there was a small elite of women for whom money was no object when it came to fashion – although not many were quite as extravagant as Rita Lydig, who once spent $9,000 on a dressing gown.

There were virtually no ready-made clothes.

Everything was made by dressmakers for the welloff or at home by mothers and sisters.

Especially for moderately well-to-do women, clothes were a serious matter. Even during the war, a society etiquette book advised young ladies that for a country house weekend they would need “a couple of morning dresses, two tweed suits with jumpers or blouses, a smart tailor-made jacket, one or two afternoon dresses for church, garden parties, the dansants and from three to six evening dresses of varying degrees of smartness from demi toilette to the ball dress.”

Then came the corsets. Made of heavy cotton, satin or even denim and strengthened with sprung steels – apparently more pliable than whalebone – “they controlled wobble, supported the stockings and satisfied anxious hypochondriacs by keeping the kidneys warm”. They were also crushingly uncomfortable and restricted movement.

On top of the corset came the corset cover, then several petticoats of flannel, wool, cotton or silk.

Then the dress or coat, padded hair and a hat. All in all, clothes weighed at least 10lbs.Those posh ladies must have been tougher than they look.

The suffragettes, meanwhile, were clever, with an early appreciation of the importance of image, realising the impact of clothes and the importance of appearing ladylike. Emmeline Pankhurst was said to dress “with the elegance of a Frenchwoman and the neatness of a nun”.

When her daughter, Christabel, appeared in court she wore a fresh white muslin dress with coloured sash. The white dress – the sign of the leisured classes – became almost a uniform for the suffragettes, an amazing sight at rallies, teamed with sashes in the suffragette colours of purple, green and white. Change was in the air – and it was shown in the clothes.

For many women war was liberating. More money was spent on clothes in 1917 than in 1915, probably by women doing war work.

Clothes were liberating in other ways. Women flocked to take up war work, often undertaking jobs previously done by men. There was no way they could do this while wearing the many encumbering layers of pre-war fashion.

“Men cannot imagine a woman dressed as women have seen fit to dress for the last few years being competent to take any serious or worthy part in the work of the world,” said a newspaper editorial in April 1914. So clothes began to be a bit freer, lighter, allowing more movement.

Many women were also wearing uniform for the first time. Women of all classes rushed to volunteer for various nursing societies. Nurses’ uniforms as bought at Harrods and seen on the front cover of Vogue seem almost glamorous.

But what impresses Lucy Adlington is the incredible pride women took in their uniforms.

“It wasn’t until women wore uniforms that the value of their labour was truly recognised. It gave them respect,” she says.

But uniforms had to be adapted to enable women to work. “If female clothes were fit for purpose, the woman in them could fill a variety of roles. Uniforms represented a desire to be taken seriously and to treat work seriously.”

The Women’s Land Army, established in 1917 when food shortages were bringing Britain to the brink of starvation, initially included a skirt. Even at 14ins off the ground it was not practical for mud and muck so was replaced by breeches with wide posteriors, tapering to fit tightly round the calves and sealed by gaiters. It scandalised some, was still not particularly comfortable – though one fashion magazine declared encouragingly “breeches are awfully becoming”.

What it all proved was that it was often women’s clothes rather than their abilities that held them back. Given the right clothes the women could do the job and gain respect. “What also made a difference was that the media took this on,” says Lucy. “There was still a lot of opposition the idea of women working but the media were enthusiastic and that helped to get it accepted.”

By the end of the war, things were changing.

Women were about to get the vote. Their clothes, too, gave them more freedom. There was still unimagined luxury for the rich but the rise of ready-made clothes – partly a legacy of the machine-cutting techniques and mass production of uniform making – would change the way the rest of us dressed. “Between 1910 and 1920 there were huge changes, reflected in the way women dressed,”

says Lucy. “There was still a long way to go, but the door was opening.”