Thursday, June 17, 2010
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Victorian Fashion
A CHANGING SOCIAL FABRIC
bY fAbRONTE, (2006)
Getting dressed during the 19th Century could be a complicated affair, as experienced by Margaret Mitchell’s evergreen American Civil War character, Scarlett O’Hara.
In costume terms, the period of dress styles in the English-speaking world from around 1937 to 1901 was generally known as the Victorian era.
Costume historian Penelope Byrde notes in the book Nineteenth Century Fashion that it was one of the most complex social periods in history. This was reflected in its clothing styles, especially for the wealthier classes, and this complexity greatly influenced early New Zealand European colonial dressing.
In Britain a quickened pace of change and activity because of the ferment of ideas, technological developments and increased communication forged by the Industrial Revolution, led to increased social insecurity, Byrde says. “To strengthen what was perceived as the old order, complicated rules for manners and clothes were developed and etiquette became an important means of distinguishing one class from another.”
Francois Boucher, author of 20,000 Years of Costume, says European clothes showed the first tendencies toward internationalism in the first half of the 19th Century. There was a new egalitarianism, and French and British styling dominated both men’s and women’s fashion.
Fashion oddities such as the crinoline and the bustle are commonly associated with Victorian women’s fashion. Boucher says the crinoline “met with very violent opposition” in its early days (1850s), with anti-crinolinists even attempting a Transatlantic reform of women’s costume by introducing a form of trousers, known as “bloomers”.
The bustle, a pouf of fabric and shape at the back, moved in to replace the crinoline in the 1870s and 1880s, and became increasingly accentuated.
The restricting nature of highly-decorative tightly-laced corsets and long full skirts could lead to conclusions about imprisoning women and making them dependent, Byrde says. Toward the end of the century this effect disappeared, and women began to signal their attempts at independence by adopting masculine features of dress.
Byrde says the Victorian era, often associated with prudery and modesty in dress, actually produced some fashions that were “surprisingly provocative”.
“While the legs and feet were almost always covered by full-length skirts, the neck and shoulders were often exposed and in evening dress there could be a near-naked effect with a very low-cut neck… In the late 1870s some observers were scandalised by the fashion for tie-back dresses whose tightly-fitted skirts revealed a clear outline of the woman’s hips and legs.
“The 20th Century tendency has been to attribute Freudian theories of sexual repression to such fashions, but if there is an element of truth in the view, which is questionable, these styles may also be open to other interpretations.”
In male Victorian dress there was “an increasing emphasis on ‘manliness’”, Bryde says. “Male dress became uniformly dark and practical, with a gradual elimination of unnecessary shaping and ornamentation. The fashion for beards, moustaches and whiskers underlined a masculinity of appearance.”
Dress for the working classes was generally simpler, with fewer adornments. Byrde says the crinoline was the first high fashion garment to be worn by all social classes, but for working class women these were often of poorer quality.
Tweed, waistcoats and cloth caps were popular items of clothing for male Victorian factory and agricultural workers.
COPYRIGHT: fAbRONTE 2006
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