There's a thread - long retired - on this subject.
We know Dorothy Gibson wore a white silk evening dress covered by a cardigan sweater. She also had on black pumps and a long coat. Dorothy wore this costume again in the Eclair-produced film "Saved from the Titanic" in which she starred after her rescue.
Edith Rosenbaum (Russell) wore a hobble-skirted woolen dress, a matching fur cape and muff, a knitted hat, and those blasted embroidered pumps with buckles, one of which she lost in the scramble to board boat 11 and actually spent a few minutes hunting for along the grate of the deck!
The photo of the George Harders on
Carpathia show the couple looking quite spiffy, he in a sport suit, overcoat, and snap-brim tweed cap, she in a floral-printed jacket, a hobble-skirt, fur stole, plumed cloche, and high-buttoned shoes.
Lady Duff Gordon, ironically, did not take time to dress, flinging on only a lightweight silk kimono and a fur coat over her night gown. She wore a scarf draped turban-style over her hair. On her feet she had on only carpet slippers without stockings and she carried a small velvet jewelry bag. The kimono is alive (and not so well) in my possession, being on loan from her family and awaiting conservation and eventual museum donation.
Mrs. Astor wore a light colored evening dress which, according to several newspaper reports, was exchanged for a heavier wool dress into which she was assisted by her maid and others in the comparative seclusion of the gymnasium. She also supposedly had an evening scarf which she gave to a steerage class lady (Mrs. Aks?)in the lifeboat later. This scarf survives in the collection of the Titanic Historical Society.
I have a theory about hobble skirts being the cause of some accidents involving first class ladies both before and during the sinking. (Hobble skirts, the fad of the 1910-14 period, were already notorious for causing women to trip as they alighted from streetcars and subways.)
So I've always thought that Mrs. Harris' tripping down stairs earlier in the day of the 14th might have had to do with a narrow hemline.
Was a tight-ankled skirt also to blame for Mrs. White's injury enroute?
Might it have contributed to Mrs. Churchill's fall as she boarded boat 6 or the fall of the young French girl (Mme. Aubart?)at boat 9?
Most tragically, did that infernal fashion prevent Miss Evans from successfully negotiating the rail at boat D?
