Next week is the Hamilton Gardens’ Mansfield Garden Party, and I’ll be speaking on garden party fashions in Mansfield’s life at the Glory Days Garden Party Salon. The Hamilton Gardens have chosen to set the Mansfield Garden party in 1922, the year Mansfield’s story was published (it came out in early Feb, 1922 – and Mansfield had been living with Northern Hemisphere winters for the last 12+ years), rather than ca. 1907, which is when Mansfield was in Wellington, attending garden parties, and which is when I think the story is essentially set, based on the mentions of clothing. Mansfield’s garden party may not have taken place in 1922, but the parties of The Great Gatsby did, and the early ’20s are certainly a fetching, and easy to wear, era for garden parties. So what did people wear to garden parties in 1919-1922? A hat and parasol are absolute must-haves. The fad for tanning wouldn’t happen until later in the 1920s, and the desired complexion in the ‘teens and early ’20s was still very pale …