Hi! So today I'll be showing you how to tell different 19th century fashion
decades apart. We're not going to be talking about what affected fashion but
rather what the clothes looked like.
Everything in fashion happens gradually
so to understand what was going on at the beginning of a new century let's
move back a bit to 1790s.
1790s were a transition period. A new slender
silhouette came to fashion but it took a while till the ladies got rid of their
bum rolls, wigs and wide petticoats.
That's why in some Jane Austen movie adaptations you can still see the older
generation wearing older 18th century gowns, while the youngsters are dressed
in the empire fashion.
So in 1790s the waist gradually went higher, the skirts
got narrower, the hair smaller (though ladies still used to powder them), turbans
and ostrich feathers were the thing. Sleeves were usually elbow length.
What's typical for the era is that the skirts were gathered at the back of the dress
but also in front. That's why when we look at some of the 1790s fashion plates
nowadays all of the ladies look kind of pregnant. Also if you look at the back of
a late 1790s or early 1800s dress you can notice a very peculiar cut.
The sleeves heads were pushed back towards the shoulder blades and the back of the
dress was very short with the shortest point being in the center.
Women would even pad this bit of the skirt to make it look fuller.
Despite a circulating stereotype this new silhouette did not make women toss
corsets away. Some brave French fashionistas were not wearing them
that's true but corsets never completely disappeared
Mainly because the new silhouette required your bust to basically touch your chin.
And what better way to achieve that than some good old push-up bra?
I mean, stays.
The beginning of the 1800s saw the death of the heavily powdered hair
and classicism inspired hair-dos became all the rage.
Women would style their coiffures after antique sculptures and paintings.
The dresses also changed. Everyone got crazy about light delicate fabrics.
The skirts' trains were getting longer and longer, the busts were higher than ever
and the bodices were really short.
By 1810 the super long trains were no longer in fashion (no longer, get it? haha)
the skirts got wider and they became more trapezoidal in shape.
Rich Indian silks became fashionable.
The waist began gradually dropping around 1815.
Also the later in the decade the more decoration on the everyday outfits.
Grecian and Roman Hairstyles were adapted into a very popular look which
included curls on both sides of the face together with an intricate updo.
1820s were a transitional period from a classical empire silhouette to the
crazily over-the-top 1830s.
So the skirts got wider and wider shorter and shorter
the waist drop lower and lower the sleeves grew bigger and bigger and more
and more decorations started to appear on the dresses.
The hem of the skirts was
padded to help achieve the trapezoidal shape.
In 1830s everything kept growing
until the middle of the decade
and let me tell you got really intense.
Women would wear multiple petticoats some of them stiffened by cording or
horsehair to hold the volume of the skirts that were now shorter than ever.
They even wore special sleeve supports to make the sleeves bigger.
The waist was pretty low at this point
but still a bit higher than ladies' natural waists.
Thanks to Queen Victoria who was coronated in 1837 modesty and minimalism
came to fashion.
From 1836 everything started decreasing, the sleeve puffs started
moving downwards, the decoration started disappearing, the skirts were back to
floor length, the updos got flat and in the late 1830s the waist finally reached
its natural position.
1840s were a decade of earthy colors, fitted pointy bodices,
and fitted sleeves, tight collars usually separately attached, and small
geometrical patterns.
Basically everything got tighter and the only
thing that kept growing was the width of women's skirts that required more and
more support.
Popular hair style was a low bun and the middle parting and that with
some minor modifications was a hot look up until the late 1860s.
In the 1850s the problem of growing skirts became so big (big, got it?) that it was necessary to
develop a special construction to help them stay in shape and not floppy.
That construction was called crinoline and it was patented in 1856.
Now note that the crinoline did not exist until then so if you hear about
18th century crinolines, that's absolute nonsense.
18th century ladies were hoop skirts or panniers.
1850s skirts were often ruffled which is an
easy way to tell them apart from 1840s skirts.
Same goes for the sleeves which
in 1850s were wide and called pagoda sleeves.
Women would often wear fake
white sleeves underneath so they could peek from the pagoda sleeves.
The waist dropped a little bit below the actual waist level and got longer in the front
Plaid dresses were all the rage as well as floral motives.
In 1860s the shape of the
whole silhouette started changing.
After the waist reached its lowest point in
1850s it started going a little bit above the natural waist level in the 1860s.
Buttoned bodices became fashionable, the ruffled plaid skirts were gone and
instead plain solid colors were in fashion, with geometrical trimmings such
as the Greek key decorating the hems.
The shape of the skirt changed slightly and
so did the shape of the crinoline underneath, accentuating the back.
Apart from being gathered or pleated at the waist some skirts were also made of panels.
From about 1867 the transitional period started.
The waist would start
traveling even higher but the skirt this time instead of
expanding on decreasing would start getting more volume at the back
It would also gradually become more and more decorated.
The crinolines gradually
morphed into crinolettes and then around the beginning of 1870s into bustles.
That's how we enter the bustle era.
1870s where a decade I would compare
to 1830s - big hair, a lot of decorations, frills, flowers, laces, pinks and pastels.
A huge inspiration for 1870s was 18th century fashion and you can kind of tell.
Even the hairstyles were sort of Marie Antoinette inspired.
Some people would literally take old family dresses from let's say 1780s and redo them into fashionable creations.
Dresses were also influenced by Renaissance and medieval fashions.
About the butts - the 1870s bustle was large and the skirt was in
trapezoidal shape.
To accentuate the silhouette even more women would wear
two skirts one of them was an underskirt which went - surprise surprise - under, and
the other went on top and was called the over skirt.
Over skirts were draped to
make the butts look even bigger.
And then, suddenly the butts disappeared!
Around 1878 women dropped the big bustles and chose to wear small bum pads instead.
The skirts got really narrow but instead of the fullness the designers came up with
length and added long trains.
This look called the natural form era lasted for
only about four years because around 1882, the bustles were back on track!
Remember what happened after 1830s?
Minimalism, geometry, earthy tones
strictness - well this sort of happened after the 1870s too.
1880s are known as the second bustle era and though at first glance might look
similar to 1870s there are some significant differences that make it
easier to tell them apart.
Firstly the skirts are not the trapezoidal shape anymore.
They were just a little bit wider than the hips.
Secondly the shape of the corset changed slightly.
Spoon busked corsets came into fashion giving
the illusion of a full belly and I swear I'm not making it up.
And from a more harsh geometrical 1870s shape, a curvy wavy 1880s shape evolved.
Thirdly, the bustles shape or rather angle changed.
Instead of gradually going down
the bustles formed a sort of shelf on the ladies bottoms.
Fourthly (if that's even a word) ladies' hairstyles changed.
Women would also start cutting their
forehead hair and setting it into frizzy bangs.
Not the most flattering look but
if you have bangs this is one of the rare 19th century fashion history
moments when this look is historically accurate.
So as you probably noticed, changes in fashion history usually start with something gradually growing or
decreasing or getting longer or shorter so because skirts kept changing all the
time at the beginning of the 1890s people were like "Hey what about the sleeves"
Sleeves it is then - from 1890 to around 1895 the sleeves were getting
bigger and bigger and bigger and to balance the huge sleeves the skirts
also had to get wider if you wonder what happened to the bustle well it kind of disappeared.
The only reminder that the bustle was ever there was a peculiar
pleat at the back of the skirts in early 1890s but those pleats disappeared after a while too.
1890s where a time where art noveau was kind of huge so you can see
that in the clothes and the way they're cut and made.
Floral and geometrical designs
cover the dresses, jackets and coats from the era.
What I especially love about the
1890s is the collars so especially the coats and capes from the era jackets and
generally speaking outerwear often had very high spiky collars you know they're
Maleficent kind of collar
The skirts changed once again from trapezoidal
wide skirts in the middle of 1890s to tulip-shaped narrower skirts by the end of the decade.
Later in the decade women also started getting rid of the weird frizzy
bangs and a puffy more art nouveau appropriate style was introduced.
1890s were the time of a big discussion around tight lacing, corsets and how they affect
women's health.
Tight lacing wasn't very popular before but by the end of 19th
century more and more fashionistas desired small waists.
So the solution to
the problem was an invention of an s-bend corset or a health corset in 1900.
It completely changed women's silhouette but that's kind of a whole another story
so maybe I'll tell you about that when we're discussing 20th century I hope now
I hope now when you hear about something being "Victorian- or "19th century style" you
know there is no such thing because 19th century was such a huge piece of fashion
history with countless silhouettes cuts and styles.
Anyway I hope you enjoyed
this messy explanation obviously, I missed a lot of things and some
things I listed as a typical thing for one decade we're actually also popular
in other decades but just to give you a general idea.
Ok, thanks for listening and
see you next time hopefully.