IT feels like I’ve stepped back in time when I meet Lucy Adlington. We are on Kirkgate, the Victorian street at York Castle Museum, and Lucy is wearing a full-length silk dress in olive green with a taffeta petticoat in bright orange.

“It’s a silk afternoon gown dating from about 1916,” says Lucy as she perches on the edge of the counter in the Kirkgate fabric store to strike a pose for our photographer.

The dress is one of many in Lucy’s wardrobe. As a historian specialising in costume, she has amassed a fine collection of clothes over the years. She uses the garments to illustrate a range of presentations she offers through her business venture the History Wardbrobe New this year is the Great War Fashion presentation, to tie in with the national commemoration of the outbreak of hostilities 100 years ago. Lucy, who is based in York, has also just published a book on the subject.

She will be at the Castle Museum on Wednesday, March 19, along with several garments from the war period including original uniforms, fashionable outfits and lots of images.

If we want to gauge how the war altered women’s lives, a close study of their clothes from 1914 to 1918 is enlightening, asserts Lucy.

“The war brought in big changes,” starts Lucy. When war broke out Lucy says “women were told to go home, sit still and knit or do voluntary work.” That all changed once the government realised the war would not be won by Christmas. “In 1915, women took part in a mass protest in London, demanding the right to work. The government realised it had to keep the factories open so 1915 was a big turning point for women.”

As women took up jobs left by men sent to the front, their clothing changed dramatically. “Women started wearing work clothes for war work,” says Lucy. “Here in York, women in the services were wearing the female version of military uniform. They wore skirts, but they were shorter – just below the knee.”

Later, the uniform became more masculine as the government issued health and safety orders for the workplace. This resulted in some women wearing canvas trousers or breeches with boots for work.

This was a huge departure from the traditional Edwardian silhouette, which was very formal and fitted. The bra was yet to be introduced (an early bra, the Caresse-Crosby was not patented until 1914), so women were still wearing corsets.

However, as the war progressed, female fashions became less structured – a precursor to arrival of the flapper style of the 1920s.

“By 1918, the silhouette was looser,” says Lucy. “Women wore shift dresses that went over the head and were loose and easy to wear and the hemlines changed.

“It gave women more freedom of movement. The hourglass figure was out, replaced by the loose, tube figure.

“Women got used to being more comfortable in clothes, which were often made from modern fabrics such as jersey and rayon. The next generation, after the war, was ready for something new: the shift dress of the 1920s.”

Hair changed at this time too, adds Lucy, going shorter and leading eventually to the neat bobs of the 1920s. “Women cut their long hair off during the war, often for practical reasons. Nurses on the front didn’t want lice and women in factories cut it off where it would be dangerous to have long hair for certain jobs. For work, they found shorter hair was simpler and better.”

The Great War not only heralded a revolution in the how women looked, but in their lives too, says Lucy. “By the end of the war, people could no longer say women could not do that. They were used to having their own freedom and wages.”

• Lucy Adlington will bring her presentation, Great War Fashion, to Kirkgate at York Castle Museum on Wednesday March 19 from 7pm-9pm. Tickets cost £5, available by phoning 01904 687633