Cartwheel hats to corsets: early 20th-century fashionistas in Malta

To illustrate a previous feature, I had dipped into my accumulations of antique photographs. I wanted to document what people in Malta wore during the Victorian age, which obligingly cut off almost exactly at the turn of the century. 
A group photo with musicians, c. 1910.
I will repeat the exercise for the Edwardian era to World War I, roughly the years 1901 to 1920.
Prince George, later king, is in the picture above.
Cutting-edge local fashion witnessed a slow shift from Victorian opulence to a newer simplicity and greater rationality and practicality. Though still leaning to ostentation, women gradually started distancing themselves from cartwheel hats which looked like trophies from the Fur and Feather show or like flower arrangements kidnapped from centrepieces on a monarch’s dinner table. 
Also, there were fewer unwieldy crinolines – reinforced hospital tents hanging from their hips. 
The austerity of a catastrophic world war further shrank the space available for vanity and frivolity. The S-shape silhouette constrained by corsets replaced the hour-glass imperative of Victorian trend-setters. Tailored suits started gaining ground.

Except for very formal occasions, men,...