Edwardian Promenade

As the boulevards are associated with Paris, Hyde Park with London and Fifth Avenue with New York City, so also is the cafe entwined with the city of Vienna. Such was the renown of the Viennese cafe, Mark Twain was moved to rapture: “that unapproachable luxury–that sumptuous coffee-house, compared with which all European [...]

Ah Jane Austen! It is apparent that she shall never go out of style, as witnessed by the many TV & movie adaptations and novels inspired by her life and works. But the obsession with all things Austen goes much farther back than spate of movies released in the 1990s.
The “cult” of Jane Austen finds [...]

With love and marriage, there can unfortunately be divorce. For our Edwardian counterparts, divorce was a difficult and arduous process that could be, depending upon the social circle, a one-way ticket to the cut direct.
The law of England regarded marriage as a contract, a status and institution. Up until 1857, divorce was administered by ecclesiastical [...]

There arose in the 1880s, the phenomena of the “professional beauty.” A curious phase had come over society wherein publicity became the fashion, and from it, the craze to exhibit photographs of “Ladies of Quality” in the windows of Fleet Street. Instrumental in creating this sensation was London-based artist Frank Miles, who specialized in watercolors [...]

In my quest to discover what it was truly like to wear the clothes of an Edwardian woman, I discovered the wonderful, bubbly and highly-praised reenactment actress, Kandie Carle. Through period-correct clothing and undergarments, Carle shares intriguing anecdotes and facts about the history of the undergarments, etiquette, leisure activities and home life of women [...]

“A glass of absinthe is as poetical as anything in the world. What difference is there between a glass of absinthe and a sunset?” –Oscar Wilde
Invented by a Frenchman towards the end of the eighteenth century, absinthe was not originally known as the swirling, intoxicating drink favored by boulevardiers and artists. Dr. Pierre Ordinaire meant [...]

At the beginning of the nine year reign of Edward VII, the motorcar was a status symbol that only the very rich could afford to purchase and maintain, as the horse, generally cheaper and familiar to the population, continued its domination of everyday travel and transport. By 1910, the use of the horse was almost [...]