DRESS UP TO GET DOWN!

When I Take My Sugar To Tea - The Sunshine Boys

Tonight on Peppermint Candy we’re talking about our favourite cafes - like Lowry & Baker, Lily Vanilli Bakery and Pelicci’s (where Amber is now a celebrity, but you’ll have to listen to the show to find out why).

Obviously these places don’t have a specific dress code, but we still feel it’s important to dress appropriately, given the illustrious history of afternoon tea. In fact by the end of the nineteenth century, women were wearing specific ‘Tea Gowns’ for the social occasion that was afternoon tea. These gowns were halfway between full dress and undress – you could receive guests into your home wearing it, but you certainly couldn’t wear it out on the town. They were so unstructured and flimsy (and relatively easy to remove) that ladies would arrange to see their lovers at teatime so that afterwards they could slip quickly out of their tea gowns rather than having to fiddle with the extensive buttons and hooks and eyes of their usual daywear. Cheeky! There are two examples of these gowns from the 1870s and 1899 above. 

But we understand that times have changed and that popping out to your local caff in your undies might not sound appealing… In which case you could make like us and snap on a feather ruff, which is what we did for this shoot at another of our favourite cafes, Maison Bertaux.