Percy Dearmer and the resurgence of lay Pre-Raphaelite fashion.
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Ivan Clutterbuck on Edwardian Anglo-Catholicism and its overlap with arts & crafts ❤️ pic.twitter.com/TG8CkcUuuI
— J.J. Pearce 📖 (@pearcej96) December 22, 2020
Anglican Utopia:
A sort of Christian Socialism governed the making of such vestments for no sweated labour could be employed but only a home-spun craftmanship. Anson amusingly notes that this new ecclesiastical style could be detected in the clothes of the worshippers. Men defied Sunday conventions by wearing baggy suits of home-spun tweed, shirts with soft collars, and often sandals instead of boots or shoes. Women tended to look like the models painted by Rosetti or Burne-Jones in free-flowing liberated floral dresses. The cathedral of this new life style was St Mary's, Primrose Hill in north west London. This remained a sort of period piece until the Second World War and was copied by other churches round the country. It could be seen in its most purist form at Thaxted under its 'red' vicar Conrad Noel. Altogether it was a very distinctive example of English aestheticism.