Dress, of course, was an essential form of display. Being seen in the right clothes at the right time in the right place was one of the obsessions of the age. A male guest at a quiet British weekend party was expected to don, or change into, the approved costumes for breakfast and church, for lounging about in the morning, for eating lunch, for lounging about in the afternoon, for taking tea (a velvet jacket) and for dinner (white tie and tails). Female guests put on filmy tea gowns for the afternoon ritual; for dinner they wore formal dresses with trains and carried ostrich feather fans.
