Why do women love to dress up?

Trying on clothes, said Ewart, produced “sensations which bring deep peace and perfect contentment” to the female mind.

Why do women love to dress up?’ asked Dr Charles Theodore Ewart, in 1913. To compete with women? To please their husbands or admirers? For their own pleasure? No.

Ewart said women loved dressing up because they are ‘slightly insane’. What would he have thought of fashion-icon Posh Spice, or of Kate Middleton (with her €40,000-a-year wardrobe), women who don’t just love their clothes, but adore them?