Victorian Clothing:The Dress in The First and Second Bustle Periods

Fashionable women's dress in the era of the 1870's and 1880's, while looking quite modest to modern eyes, was viewed as unashamedly erotic in it's own day. The bustle, the cornerstone on which women's dress depended, focused the majority of the decoration and clothing focus on a woman's backside, and emphasized the movement of that body part to heroic proportions.

The dress of the first bustle period (1870's) is noted for the lightness of it's material and decoration, swathing the lower reaches of a woman's body in numerous ruffles and pleats, often in light colors using the new and vibrant aniline dyes.

Late in this decade (1878-79) was the "Fishtail" style, where the lower part of the skirt was tight, and ended in a train.

The second bustle period (the 1880's) is heavier, with decoration more resembling upholstery style. Colors get more Jewel-toned and velvets, heavy satins and brocades replace the taffetas and cottons of the 1870's. Surface decoration is often of passementarie or jet beads, giving the whole ensemble a more mature flavor.

Men's Dress

Men's dress in this era continues in it's general dullness but begins to be enlivened with sportswear, an area that continues to provide the most intriguing variants of men's dress.

Dress during the 1870's and 1880's came more and more under the influence of the Rational Dress Movement and the Aesthetic Movement . Dress reform from artists, feminists and socialists provided a continuous counterpoint to the more frivolous dress of fashionable women, and the more tedious dress of fashionable men.

DRESS REFORM MOVEMENT 1850-1914

Dress reformers o f the Aesthetic movement such as Oscar Wilde promoted jewel-toned velvet suits with breeches for men, but only found a lasting audience among mothers who dressed small boys in "Little Lord Fauntleroy" suits in this style. Caricaturists such as George du Maurier simultaneously lampooned the Aesthetic dress even as they spread it's influence. The Gilbert and Sullivan opera Patience spread the Aesthetic style to America, with costumes from Liberty Co. where it was transformed in the following decades into the Arts and Crafts Movement. Women's aesthetic dress, with it's semi medieval lines and uncorseted waists were transformed by popular taste into the Teagown, a fashionable lady's at home garment.
Rational dress advocates like George Bernard Shaw tried to popularize Jaeger combination suits (which resembled woolen long johns), but were laughed off the streets. Dr Jaeger's more conservative ensembles of wool knickers and a Norfolk jacket however were accepted as men's sportswear even among the fashionable.

Victorian Clothing:The "Romantic" Period

The Rise of the Industrial Revolution

Clothing from 1825-1850
The trend towards sexual dimorphism in dress reaches an absurd apex in this period. Men's fashion becomes a series of undecorated black tubes, like the smoke stacks of the The Industrial Revolution (an analogy they were even conscious of at the time), while women's dress continues to balloon out with ruffles, decorations and petticoats until women look like ambulatory wedding cakes.


Both men's and women's dress becomes more complex during this era due to the invention of the Sewing Machine, and the popular dissemination of pattern books and systems for garment cutting. Men's clothing construction, while outwardly simple, begins to acquire the internal padding, interfacings and complex structure that makes modern men's suits fall so smoothly even over an object as lumpy and mobile as the human form.
Elias Howe, the inventor of the first mass produced, practical sewing machine, originally demonstrated it's utility to a group of prospective investors by holding a sewing race between himself and his machine, and ten professional hand stitchers. He easily won, and the economic situation of stitchers (mostly female) declined as a consequence of the adoption of the invention. With a sewing machine, a stitcher could produce ten times the output as before, with greater quality, but the stitcher rarely could afford the machine, and with so many stitchers out of work, stitchers were easily replaceable. Industrialists would invest in the machines, hire the stitchers cheaply, and then swallow the profits that their increased output produced. With profits so high, soon competition between manufacturers of clothes got fierce, and so producers tried to "improve" their product by adding more sewing decoration, such as ruffles, pleats, and top stitching, to lure customers. The end result was that fashionable Women's dress became incredibly over decorated in the 19th Century.

Another result of this increased output in clothing manufacture was that poor people's clothing got better, and the rags of earlier eras were replaced by cheaply made mass manufactured work clothes. The middle classes were able to afford more than clean simple clothes, and began to actively indulge in fashion for it's own sake.

"The Last of England" by Ford Maddox Brown, showing the dress of poor English people as they emigrate to Australia.

Fashionable women's dress grew more and more cumbersome and impractical during the 1830's and 1840's. The visual line of 1840's gowns, hats and headdress all point down, and the eyes of women depicted in fashion plates are demurely cast to the floor. The increasing size of the skirts, held out only with voluminous and usually unsanitary crinoline (horsehair canvas) petticoats, made the weight of the skirts oppressive, and movement awkward. Tight laced Corsets of a waist-cinching style, pinched the waist without providing the back supporting properties of corsets of other eras.
This is the time of the tortured and victimized Bronte heroines, not to mention the tortured and victimized Bronte Sisters themselves. The 1840's proved such a low point for women in Western history, that the worm finally turned, and women began to organize and agitate for the vote, dress reform, and the right to enter schools and professions closed to them.

Regency and Empire

French Revolution and Empire Periods

This time frame from 1789-1825 is actually several different sub-periods. The first, 1789-1799, the period of The French Revolution, is a sharp transition period. The second 1800-1815 is the time of the French Consulate and Empire, and is a stable Neo-classical period. 1815-1825 is the late Neo-classical period that shows a gradual shift towards the Romantic style

Dress in The French Revolution

Dress during this period goes through a massive shift. Late 18th Century women's dress collapses from it's padded and puffed look to a thin, often translucent silhouette. As the French Revolution progressed, different women's styles were adopted that appeared to have reference to the revolutionary politics, social structure and philosophy of the time. In the early 1790's, for example, the "English" or man-tailored style was favored as it hinted towards the leanings of constitutional monarchy. There was a brief fashion for plain dresses in dark colors during the Terror of 1792, but when the Directory took over French fashion again went wild, trying out "Rousseauesque" fashions in "Greek", "Roman", "Sauvage" and "Otaheti" (Tahitian) styles.


The Psudo-"Greek" look proved most popular and was adopted as the standard style in Europe in the late 1790's




Costume for a ball "a la sauvage", 1796. 2. "Greek" style dress, 1797.





A dress of the male style in vogue between 1780-95

Men's
While Men's Costume in the 1790's also becomes thinner in line, it separates it's style from women's dress by beginning to lose nearly all forms of surface decoration, lace and bright color, as "irrational" and feminine effluvia. This change is slow, but it completely alters men's dress by the mid 19th Century into dull dark uniform dress.
Other major changes include the adoption of trousers from the dress of sailors and the urban proletariat of the French Revolution, the passing of the fashions for wigs and hair powder, and the (very temporary) demise of the corset.
The bonnet is invented as a hat that is meant to look like a Greek helmet, but it quickly is altered in style out of all resemblance to the original.

Men's dress also keeps on a fairly steady course towards increasing dullness. Fashion magazines continue to push men's dress towards foppish extremes, but men who actually count in the fashionable world tend to push for plainer styles. Beau Brummell, the leader of male sartorial fashion in England in this period was noted for wearing only black with a white shirt for formal evening wear, a marked departure from the style of the previous century. Tubular and fitted trousers also move from a radical fashion statement to everyday wear for most men of the upper classes.

Men's clothing in this era becomes less and less adventurous in style. The few outlets for male fashion expression (boots, hats, collars and neckties) therefore go to extremes. Neckties in this period were especially important


France 1800 in Max von Boehn's

1822 Vienna from Max von Boehn's

Bonnets from "Wiener Zeitschrift", Vienna, 1820 in Max von Boehn's

Late 18th century

Wig fashions from 1715-1725 early in the reign of Louis XV

Informal dress with Caraco jacket, 1788.

Fashion of 1779, French court dress, 1780

Rich bourgeoisie in a Caraco jacket, Lady in a formal gown and hairdress "a' la Victoire", elegant woman in a Polonaise, all 1778

Frock coat of green-pink shot taffeta with embroidery, 1780. Coat of green taffeta, (city-gentlemen's dres

1770's hairdos

1775

1770's grand gown from a French fashion plate

Mid 18th century

Dress of the Winter of 1762.

Two shoes of the 1st half of the 18th Century

Family of upper class bourgeoisie out walking, 1760

Stomachers and dress trim with gold and silver lace, Shoes of rose pink velvet, middle of the 18th Century

Contouche of white linen -work, middle of the 18th Century
1740 French

Back of a Lady's Sack dress, middle of the 18th Century.

Yellow Lady's Dress, middle of the 18th Century

French Hairdress of the 1770's from Stibbert

French Hairdress of the 1770's from Stibbert

Early 18th Century Europe

Hats and wigs of the 1740's from Hogarth, including The Ramillies wig

Wig fashions from 1715-1725 early in the reign of Louis XV.

At the beginning of the 18th Century, the most popular dress wig was the long, full-bottomed wig, left over from the previous century. It dribbled its way out of fashion until the 1720's when it was only worn by professional men such as lawyers and doctors. After 1740, it was only worn by judges and had gone completely out of fashion.

Dress of the Grand Masters of the Hubertus-Ordens, c. 1720

Elegant dress of the Regency period (of Louis XV) in France

Plate by C.Luikon, c.1703