Post by Steam Girl on Oct 30, 2008 7:38:30 GMT -5
Clothing and Fashion
Helen Roberts
Clothing has a myriad of functions:
Protecting the body form climate
Keeping one modest
Defining gender
Defining class
“Clothes make the man” was no cliché in this period; but is a profound truth about the workings of society.
19th C memoirs, novels, and magazines reveal how Victorians viewed clothing as insights into character and could transform personality.
To transform people into the lords and ladies of the Victorian age an army of barbers, cobblers, tailors, dressmakers, seamstresses, milliners, hatters, importers, shop girls, weavers, dyers, and textile workers were needed. Victorian clothing in form, construction, number, materials, and decoration was complex and exaggerated.
Male dress: trousers, jacket, shirts, and overcoats; all relatively remained unchanged with complexity in details, colors, and accessories. The garments were specified by occupation as well.
Female garments: wide crinolines or narrow hobble skirts, tight sleeves or broad leg-of-mutton sleeves, form-fitting cuirasses or protuberant bustles; exhibited enormous variety. Women also developed a large amount of garments for specific activities and even larger variety of accessories: boa, bolero, bodice, knickers, shawl, bertha, chatelaine, corsage, fanchon, pardessus, plastron, redingote, etc.
The sewing machine, invented in the US in 1840s and brought to England in the 1850s, allowed for revolutionary change in construction of garments. Paper patterns were developed and distributed. Dressmakers and tailors were still necessary though.
Helen Roberts
Clothing has a myriad of functions:
Protecting the body form climate
Keeping one modest
Defining gender
Defining class
“Clothes make the man” was no cliché in this period; but is a profound truth about the workings of society.
19th C memoirs, novels, and magazines reveal how Victorians viewed clothing as insights into character and could transform personality.
To transform people into the lords and ladies of the Victorian age an army of barbers, cobblers, tailors, dressmakers, seamstresses, milliners, hatters, importers, shop girls, weavers, dyers, and textile workers were needed. Victorian clothing in form, construction, number, materials, and decoration was complex and exaggerated.
Male dress: trousers, jacket, shirts, and overcoats; all relatively remained unchanged with complexity in details, colors, and accessories. The garments were specified by occupation as well.
Female garments: wide crinolines or narrow hobble skirts, tight sleeves or broad leg-of-mutton sleeves, form-fitting cuirasses or protuberant bustles; exhibited enormous variety. Women also developed a large amount of garments for specific activities and even larger variety of accessories: boa, bolero, bodice, knickers, shawl, bertha, chatelaine, corsage, fanchon, pardessus, plastron, redingote, etc.
The sewing machine, invented in the US in 1840s and brought to England in the 1850s, allowed for revolutionary change in construction of garments. Paper patterns were developed and distributed. Dressmakers and tailors were still necessary though.