Victorian fashion

Drawing of Victorian woman 1900s

Victorian fashion comprises the various fashions and trends in British culture that emerged and grew in province throughout the Victorian era and the reign of Queen Victoria, a period which would last from June 1837 to January 1901. Covering nearly two thirds of the 19th century, the 63-year reign would see numerous changes in fashion. These changes would include, but not be limited to, changes in clothing, architecture, literature, and the decorative and visual arts.

By 1907, clothing was increasingly factory-made and often sold in large, fixed price department stores. Custom sewing and home sewing were still significant, but on the decline. New machinery and materials changed clothing in many ways.

The introduction of the lock-stitch sewing machine in mid-century simplified both home and boutique dressmaking, and enabled a fashion for lavish application of trim that would have been prohibitively time-consuming if done by hand. Lace machinery made lace at a fraction of the cost of the old, laborious methods.

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New materials from far-flung British colonies gave rise to new types of clothing (such as rubber, which made gumboots and mackintoshes possible.) Chemists developed new, cheap, bright dyes that displaced the old animal or vegetable dyes.

Women's fashion

In the 1840s and 1850s, women's gowns developed wide puffed sleeves. Dresses were simple and pale. Realistic flower trimming was used on dresses. Petticoats, corsets, chemises were worn under gowns. By the 1850s the number of petticoats was reduced and the crinoline was worn; as such the size of the skirts expanded. Day dresses had a solid bodice and evening gowns had a very low neckline and were worn off the shoulder with shawls.

In the 1860s, the skirts became flatter at the front and projected out more behind the woman. Day dresses had wide pagoda sleeves and high necklines with lace or tatted collars. Evening dresses had low necklines and short sleeves, and were worn with short gloves or fingerless lace or crocheted mitts.

In the 1870s, uncorseted tea gowns were introduced for informal entertaining at home and steadily grew in popularity. Bustles were used to replace the crinoline to hold the skirts up behind the woman, even for "seaside dresses".

In the 1880s, riding habits had a matching jacket and skirt (without a bustle), a high-collared shirt or chemisette, and a top hat with a veil. Hunting costumes had draped ankle-length skirts worn with boots or gaiters. Clothing worn when out walking had a long jacket and skirt, worn with the bustle, and a small hat or bonnet. Travelers wore long coats like dusters.

In the 1890s, Women's wear in the last decade of the Victorian Era was characterized by high collars, held in place by collar stays, and stiff steel boning in long line bodices. By this time, there were neither crinolines nor bustles. Women opted for the tiny wasp waist instead.

In the 1870s, the fad of hoop skirts had faded and women strived for a slimmer style. The dresses were extremely tight around the corseted torso and the waist and upper legs; Punch ran many cartoons showing women who could neither sit not climb stairs in their tight dresses. The crinoline was replaced by the bustle in the rear. Small hats were perched towards the front of the head, over the forehead. To complement the small hat, women wore their hair in elaborate curls. Some women wore hairpieces called "scalpettes" and "frizzettes" to add to the volume of their hair.

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The silhouette changed once again as the Victorian era drew to a close. The shape was essentially an inverted triangle, with a wide-brimmed hat on top, a full upper body with puffed sleeves, no bustle, and a skirt that narrowed at the ankles (the hobble skirt was a fad shortly after the end of the Victorian era). The enormous wide-brimmed hats were covered with elaborate creations of silk flowers, ribbons, and above all, exotic plumes; hats sometimes included entire exotic birds that had been stuffed. Many of these plumes came from birds in the Florida everglades, which were nearly entirely decimated by overhunting. By 1899, early environmentalists like Adeline Knapp were engaged in efforts to curtail the hunting for plumes. By 1900, more than five million birds a year were being slaughtered, and nearly 95 percent of Florida's shore birds had been killed by plume hunters.

Men's Fashion

During the 1850s, men started wearing shirts with high upstanding or turnover collars and four-in-hand neckties tied in a bow, or tied in a knot with the pointed ends sticking out like "wings". The upper-class continued to wear top hats, and bowler hats were worn by the working class.

In the 1860s, men started wearing wider neckties that were tied in a bow or looped into a loose knot and fastened with a stickpin. Frock coats were shortened to knee-length and were worn for business, while the mid-thigh length sack coat slowly displaced the frock coat for less-formal occasions. Top hats briefly became the very tall "stovepipe" shape, but a variety of other hat shapes were popular.

During the 1870s, three-piece suits grew in popularity along with patterned fabrics for shirts. Neckties were the four-in-hand and, later, the Ascot ties. A narrow ribbon tie was an alternative for tropical climates, especially in the Americas. Both frock coats and sack coats became shorter. Flat straw boaters were worn when boating.

During the 1880s, formal evening dress remained a dark tail coat and trousers with a dark waistcoat, a white bow tie, and a shirt with a winged collar. In mid-decade, the dinner jacket or tuxedo, was used in more relaxed formal occasions. The Norfolk jacket and tweed or woolen breeches were used for rugged outdoor pursuits such as shooting. Knee-length topcoats, often with contrasting velvet or fur collars, and calf-length overcoats were worn in winter. Men's shoes had higher heels and a narrow toe.

Starting from the 1890s, the blazer was introduced, and was worn for sports, sailing, and other casual activities.

Throughout much of the Victorian Era most men wore fairly short hair. This was often accompanied by various forms of facial hair including moustaches, side-burns, and full beards. A clean-shaven face did not come back into fashion until the end of the 1880s and early 1890s.

Distinguishing what men really wore from what was marketed to them in periodicals and advertisements is problematic, as reliable records do not exist.

Norms for Mourning

Manners and Rules of Good Society, or, Solecisms to be Avoided (London, Frederick Warne & Co., 1887) gives clear instructions, such as the following:

Relationship to deceased	First mourning	Second mourning	Ordinary mourning	Half-mourning
Wife for husband	1-year, 1-month; bombazine fabric covered with crepe; widow's cap, lawn cuffs, collars	6 months: less crepe	6 months: no crepe, silk or wool replaces bombazine; in last 3 months jet jewellery and ribbons can be added	6 months: colours permitted are grey, lavender, mauve, and black-and-grey
Daughter for parent	6 months: black with black or white crepe (for young girls); no linen cuffs and collars; no jewellery for first 2 months	4 months: less crepe	–	2 months as above
Wife for husband's parents	18 months in black bombazine with crepe	–	3 months in black	3 months as above
Parent for son- or daughter-in-law's parent	–	–	1-month black	–
Second wife for parent of a first wife	–	–	3 months black	–

The complexity of these etiquette rules extends to specific mourning periods and attire for siblings, step-parents, aunts and uncles distinguished by blood and by marriage, nieces, nephews, first and second cousins, children, infants, and "connections" (who were entitled to ordinary mourning for a period of "1–3 weeks, depending on level of intimacy"). Men were expected to wear mourning black to a lesser extent than women, and for a shorter mourning period. After the mid-19th century, men would wear a black hatband and black suit, but for only half the prescribed period of mourning expected of women. Widowers were expected to mourn for a mere three months, whereas the proper mourning period expected for widows was up to four years. Women who mourned in black for longer periods were accorded great respect in public for their devotion to the departed, the most prominent example being Queen Victoria herself.

Women with lesser financial means tried to keep up with the example being set by the middle and upper classes by dyeing their daily dress. Dyers made most of their income during the Victorian period by dyeing clothes black for mourning.

Home décor

Main article: Victorian decorative arts

Home decor started spare, veered into the elaborately draped and decorated style we today regard as Victorian, then embraced the retro-chic of William Morris as well as pseudo-Japonaiserie.

Contemporary stereotypes

Victorian prudery

Main article: Victorian morality

"The proper length for little girls' skirts at various ages", from Harper's Bazaar, showing an 1868 idea of how the hemline should descend towards the ankle as a girl got older

Men's clothing is seen as formal and stiff, women's as fussy and over-done. Clothing covered the entire body, we are told, and even the glimpse of an ankle was scandalous. Critics contend that corsets constricted women's bodies and women's lives. Homes are described as gloomy, dark, cluttered with massive and over-ornate furniture and proliferating bric-a-brac. Myth has it that even piano legs were scandalous, and covered with tiny pantalettes.

Of course, much of this is untrue, or a gross exaggeration. Men's formal clothing may have been less colourful than it was in the previous century, but brilliant waistcoats and cummerbunds provided a touch of color, and smoking jackets and dressing gowns were often of rich Oriental brocades. This phenomenon was the result of the growing textile manufacturing sector, developing mass production processes, and increasing attempts to market fashion to men. Corsets stressed a woman's sexuality, exaggerating hips and bust by contrast with a tiny waist. Women's ball gowns bared the shoulders and the tops of the breasts. The jersey dresses of the 1880s may have covered the body, but the stretchy novel fabric fit the body like a glove.

Home furnishing was not necessarily ornate or overstuffed. However, those who could afford lavish draperies and expensive ornaments, and wanted to display their wealth, would often do so. Since the Victorian era was one of increased social mobility, there were ever more nouveaux riches making a rich show.

The items used in decoration may also have been darker and heavier than those used today, simply as a matter of practicality. London was noisy and its air was full of soot from countless coal fires. Hence those who could afford it draped their windows in heavy, sound-muffling curtains, and chose colours that didn't show soot quickly. When all washing was done by hand, curtains were not washed as frequently as they might be today.

There is no actual evidence that piano legs were considered scandalous. Pianos and tables were often draped with shawls or cloths—but if the shawls hid anything, it was the cheapness of the furniture. There are references to lower-middle-class families covering up their pine tables rather than show that they couldn't afford mahogany. The piano leg story seems to have originated in the 1839 book, A Diary in America written by Captain Frederick Marryat, as a satirical comment on American prissiness.

Victorian manners, however, may have been as strict as imagined—on the surface. One simply did not speak publicly about sex, childbirth, and such matters, at least in the respectable middle and upper classes. However, as is well known, discretion covered a multitude of sins. Prostitution flourished. Upper-class men and women indulged in adulterous liaisons.

Victorian women

See also: Women in the Victorian era

See also: Neo-Victorian

Some people now look back on the Victorian era with wistful nostalgia. Historians would say that this is as much a distortion of the real history as the stereotypes emphasising Victorian repression and prudery. Women were not allowed to swim, for it would be frowned upon as "bad etiquette". Women also had to wear special suits to ride bikes.

Also notable is a contemporary counter-cultural trend called steampunk. Those who dress steampunk often wear Victorian-style clothing that has been "tweaked" in edgy ways: tattered, distorted, melded with Goth fashion, Punk, and Rivethead styles. Another example of Victorian fashion being incorporated into a contemporary style is the Gothic and Classic Lolita Fashion culture.

Gallery

• 
  A mid-Victorian interior: Hide and Seek by James Tissot c. 1877.
• 
  Dress designed by Charles Frederick Worth for Elisabeth of Austria painted by Franz Xaver Winterhalter.
• 
  William Powell Frith's painting of 1883 contrasts women's Aesthetic dress(left and right) with fashionable attire(center).
• 
  Day dress of c. 1875 James Tissot painting.
• 
  Whistler's Portrait of Lady Meux 1882.
• 
  Evening gown of 1878
• 
  Portrait by Alexander Melville of Queen Victoria, 1845
• 
  An artistic interior: Dante Gabriel Rossetti reading to Theodore Watts Dunton in the drawing room at No. 16 Cheyne Walk, 1882
• 
  Men's swimwear: Cartoon from Punch by George du Maurier

See also

• Victorian dress reform
• Women in the Victorian Era
• Victorian morality
• Charles Frederick Worth
• Corset controversy
• Victorian decorative arts
• Victoriana

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Clothing

woman:

• Corset
• Corset controversy
• Tightlacing
• Bloomers

Contemporary Interpretations

• Steampunk
• Neo-Victorian
• Lolita

Further reading

• Sweet, Matthew – Inventing the Victorians, St. Martin's Press, 2001 ISBN 0-312-28326-1

External links

• Mostly-Victorian.com – Fashion articles and illustrations from Victorian periodicals
• Victorian myths
• Victorian fashion, etiquette, and sports
• Background on "A Diary in America"
• Form and Fashion — the evolution of women's dress during the 19th century (many photographs)
• Educational Game: Mix and Match — build a 19th century dress using a virtual mannequin
• "Victorian Dress". Fashion, Jewellery & Accessories. Victoria and Albert Museum. Retrieved 3 April 2011.

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