during the war they seem to be wearing wool sweater sets...very normal looking to us , but at the time people complained " Peasant girls would be ashamed to wear such ! " lol! Perhaps the equivalent today would if we saw royalty walking around in PJ's .... to people of the time it seemed very casual ...but to us, now, when people have to be told to have shoes and shirt to be served in a store...they still look somewhat formally dressed.
However one can still see the royalty in the quality of those wool shirts and sweaters...exquisite. But it's interesting: AF's insistence they learn to sew, and sew well ( which I believe was instilled in AF by her Mother, Princess Alice) really helped them later...to keep their clothes going and to hide the jewels...one never knows when a skill will come in handy.
Even though they did not get to use those jewels...just having the feeling they were doing something about a future had to help with the sense of powerlessness . When OTA walked up the Rus gangplank, they were encased in suits of jewels of their own making ...another way we know it was unlikely they assaulted then. Because I believe if they had been, the jewels would have of course been found then....and not later after the killings ...whoa, I'm way OT!
The 1914 formal dressed are studded with gem like objects that flash from the shadows.....do we know what they were? IF they were diamonds, only Russian royalty could do it, so it's not impossible ...but could they be rhinestones? What was used back then generally?
