Victorian Era 1860-1890

Wealth & Poverty
1. Victorian Britain was the first urbanised society in the world Industrial Revolution – Became an urban society (Change to factory production) Population growth 1860 – Britain approached its peak of prosperity Clothing – Signals of status – Occupation, standing, class, virtue
2. To the enthusiast, fashion is the most seductive of addictions. We have only to turn the pages of Vogue to be immersed in a sensuous world of colours and tactile luxury. It was not so different in the 1800’s. Fashion, a source of pleasure also meets with disapproval. To enjoy dress is to risk accusations of vanity and triviality, and the fashionable are condemned as heartless for their indifference to the sufferings both of the exploited workers who make their clothes and of the birds and animals whose lives are sacrificed to their vanity. Dress is not trivial, it is a necessary form of communication, we use it to convey unspoken signals to those around us. The way we dress conforms to a whole range of moral and social customs and attitudes. Victorian Britain was the first urbanised society in the world. It was not until the Industrial Revolution that Britain as a whole became an urban society. Towns were doubling in size, London was already a city on one million in 1801.
  1. One-twelfth of the total population of the country lived in London. By 19860 Victorian Britain was approaching it’s peak of prosperity and confidence as the leading and most highly industrialised nation in the world.
The Industrial Revolution
1. The change from production in the home to factory production along with the rise of the urban society, constituted a social upheaval – The world of the Victorians was changing so fast.
  1. 1764 - Spinning Frame - James Hargreaves
2. Clear distinctions between male and female roles and the preservation of distance between the classes was of importance.
3. Clothing of the 1800’s signal status, occupation and aspirations.
4. The middle ranks of society were expanding, entrepreneurs were making fortunes in the Textiles Industry in Manchester and Lancashire. Steel in Sheffield, engineering in Birmingham and a host of new industries marked the rise of a wealthy industrial class.
5. These families were not accepted in aristocratic society, however the boundaries between the classes became less clear. By the end of the 1800’s the merging of the aristocracy and the wealthy industrialist class had begun.
The sewing machine
1. 1814 – Josef Madersperger
2. The elaboration of fashion would have been impossible without a revolution in the production and distribution of clothing. The Industrial Revolution had begun with Textiles, and rapidly extended to other forms of production.
3. It removed from the home many of the tasks that had been performed within it, the making of clothes – much of which was women's work. Originally, tailors (men) made all clothing, but by the late 1600’s and early 1700’s women had taken over the making of most women’s clothes.
4. Ready made clothes appeared in the 18th C, and were for sale in special ‘show shops’.
5. Women’s fine fashion garments were made in crowded workrooms above the imposing establishments in which customers would be received. No ‘lady’ would dream of buying ready made clothes, other than accessories, stockings or a shawl.
6. The sewing machine was a further indispensable element in the garment revolution. Eventually patented by the American inventor Isaac Merrit Singer.
7. The earliest completely machine made dresses were home made – 1860 – 65. The factory production of clothes was the logical outcome of the invention of the sewing machine, in the 1950s factories were springing up.
Industrialism
1. Middle ranks of society were expanding, new entrepreneurs – New industries in Steel, Iron & Textiles – Rise of a wealthy Industrial Class. Not accepted in aristocratic society but class boundaries were less clear.
  1. Once garments could be rapidly sewn up mechanically a log jam was caused because the garment pieces were still being cut out by hand – John Barran was able to get over this problem with the invention of a band knife. The knife could slice through many layers of woollen material and garments could be cut out in batches instead of one at a time.
    1. The sewing machine affected fashion itself, for it made possible far more ornamentations, to be seen on the gowns of the 1860s onwards. The Aesthetic Movement may have been partly a response to this over elaboration of dress.
      1. Part made bodices were on sale by the 1830s and paper patterns were readily available – In 1875 Buttericks had opened a shop in Regent Street from which they were selling 40 – 60 new designs each month. By 1880 Weldons were producing their own magazine, which carried patterns and detailed advice about fabrics.
Male & female dress
1. 19th C – Men – Sober and reserved attire, dark colours
2. 19th C – Women – Fragile, elaborate and colourful
3. Clear distinctions between male and female roles and the preservation of distance between the classes was of importance.
  1. Clothing of the 1800’s signal status, occupation and aspirations.
    1. The changing and deteriorating position of women may be why differences between male and female dress became more marked. In the 1700’s male dress had been flamboyant, with coloured silks, velvet, lace and embroidery. In the 1800’s male dress became formal, sober and reserved – With only dark colours.
      1. Women’s dress remained fragile, elaborate and colourful as ever.
1840’s
1. This demonstrates the submissive look of the 1840s. Sloping shoulders, childlike ringlets and poke bonnets.
1860’s
1. The submissive look gave way to the bolder aesthetic – Zouave jackets – A short braided bolero. Low chignons, flat/oval/pillbox of pork pie hats. Chemical dyes were invented – Aniline dyes – Brightening the appearance of the Victorian lady – Women often wore a medley of garish colours – A jacket of magenta, over a dress with a pink bodice and a crinoline of light green with olive green chevrons around the hem, all worn with a yellow hat decorated in red.
Crinoline – the cage of the Victorian lady
1. The crinoline, so often seen as literally the cage of the Victorian lady, replaced up to twelve layers of heavy petticoats. The lightness of the hoops and the lack of construction round the waist were seen as a positive liberation, at least to begin with. By the mid 1860’s crinolines had become absurdly wide, they freed the legs on one hand but caused sever mobility problems when they reached a width of 6 feet.
1865 - 1880
1. From 1865 – 1880’s women’s dress was becoming generally even more elaborate. Surviving examples of clothing show heavy boning stitched down bodice seams, sleeves set narrowly into tight fitting shoulders. In the 1850’s detachable undersleeves in fine white, embroidered muslin were tied on to the inside elbow of day dresses and covered the lower arm and wrist Essential to a genteel lady. By the 1870’s fabrics and applique decoration weighed garments down. Wool and thick silk dresses with built in linings would seem intolerable today.
Chemises, stockings, corsets, petticoats, hoops, bustle, tournure
1. Beneath her dress the Victorian woman wore a chemise, stockings, heavy boned corsets coming down over the diaphragm, waist, hips and stomach, two or three petticoats, hoops, bustle or tournure and open legged trousers beneath. By 1865 the crinoline begin to fall out of fashion, but by 1870 it had been replaced by the even more cumbersome bustle, built from horse hair, steel bones and calico. In the late 1870’s the bustle was abandoned but brought back in the 1880’s, in a more exaggerated form – Sometimes protruding as much as two feet behind the wearer. The word enslavement is often used to describe the Victorian woman, and her elaborate finery is often assumed to be a badge of her trapped and powerless condition.
2. Heavy boning, embroidery, applique, wool & thick silk
Victorian woman
1. Seen as enslaved – trapped and powerless – yet became increasingly active – crochet, archery, tennis
2. Travelling Europe and all over the world
3. Yet despite their clothing – Middle and Upper class women were becoming increasingly active, walking, playing crochet and practicing archery, and travelling not only Europe but all over the world.
4. Femininity was a middle class status symbol, and the fragile looks, housebound lives and moralistic restrictions on female behaviour was a badge of class belongingness as much as a way of policing women. Victorian middle class women were hedge in, treated as minors and prevented from having access to an independent income and status.
5. A woman could make or break the social standing and future of her entire family by her failure to understand or interpret the accepted rules of social etiquette. Victorian etiquette was elaborate, and dress was an important part of it. Social calls, entertaining, organisation of the household – All had their appropriate ceremonies and forms of dress. Dress was of vital importance in marking of the different periods of the day with their various activities. She would have morning clothes, dresses for wearing in the house, afternoon tea dresses, dinner dresses, dinner dresses and ball gowns, walking outfits and so on. Yet despite their clothing – Middle and Upper class women were becoming increasingly active, walking, playing crochet and practicing archery, and travelling not only Europe but all over the world.
Bloomers
1. Given the elaboration of fashionable women’s dress, it is not surprising that it was itself a focus for reform
  1. Amelia Jenks Bloomer was an American women's rights and temperance advocate. Even though she did not create the women's clothing reform style known as bloomers, her name became associated with it because of her early and strong advocacy.
    1. Dress reform appears to have originated from the political ideals of the French Revolution.
      1. It centred on trousered dress for women – The famous Bloomer costume was unsuccessfully popularised consisted of a jacket and short, full skirted dress over oriental pantaloons – Loose but gathered at the ankle.
2. The costume owed something to the Middle Eastern and specifically Turkish costume. Despite it’s comfort the Bloomer costume attracted ridicule. The critique of fashion was not limited to feminists, the advance of medical knowledge meant that the Victorians were very conscious of health and hygiene, and all the more so because the environment in which they lived had to some extent deteriorated. Gowns with long trains attracted dirt from the roads and pavements, long hours were wasted brushing and renovating the cumbersome garments.
3. More serious objections were made to the constriction of the female body by tight laced corsets and high heeled shoes. The distortion of the body would impair what for them was women’s sole function: maternity.
Pre Raphaelite
1. 1840’s – Gabriela Rossetti & William Morris
  1. A second source of alternative modes of dress – The Pre Raphaelite movement. Gabriel Rossetti’s painting of Elizabeth Siddall show them in dresses free of crinolines or bustles, with wide armholes so that the arms could move freely, and without elaborate frills and trimmings. The Pre-Raphaelites rejected the crude aniline colours of the 1860’s preferring off colours, sage green, salmon pink, indigo – colours straight out of the textiles and embroideries that William Morris designed and his firm Morris and Co.

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Victorian Era 1860-1890

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