Victorian Clothing

Wealthy Victorian Fashion

During the Victorian era for those who could afford regular new outfits, women's fashions changed enormously and rapidly throughout the 1800s. In the later 1800s, experts can easily date clothes to within a year or two. Modest, ringletted prettiness was 'the 'look' in the 1830s, with bonnets replacing hats. Bell-shaped skirts known as crinolines became wider and wider, needing ever more petticoats, and even hooped supports. But 1860 saw changes: the sewing machine arrived bringing costs down, and synthetic dyes enabled intense colours. The skirt silhouette flattened out at the front and moved out back: soft bustles in the 1870s, and shelf-like hard bustles from 1883.

In the mid-1890s bustles disappeared, replaced by the 'power dressing', almost military, look of wide hat, puff sleeves, narrow waist and long flared skirt. Not for the radical young lady on the new 'bicycle', though: she preferred more comfortable 'rational dress', such as bloomers. As ever for women, fashion and social change stimulated each other. This illustration from the Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine, written by Mrs Beeton (famous today for her cookbook), shows two wealthy women and a girl looking through the window of an expensive toyshop.

Clothes were made to measure. People did not go to shops like we do and see rails of clothes. Every item of clothing bought had to made especially for the person. Seamstresses and tailors were responsible for making clothes. Their were also milliners, glovers, and hatters would help to complete the look.

Poor Victorian Fashion

For the poor families that weren't able to afford new items of clothing all of the time, they tended to own very few outfits, and would wear second hand rags that had been passed through the family etc. Clothes would have been mended and patched for as long as possible. This was a cheap way of living for them as the working class needed all the money that they had for bills and more important expenses. If they were lucky, they were able to afford some smarter clothes to wear to church or on special occasions, although this was rare.

Clothes had to be practical. You had to be able to work in them and they had to last a long time. They were often made from wool or cotton in dark colours as this was cheaper and the dirt didn't show as much. Shoes also had to last a long time. Some people wore heavy boots with thick hob-nailed soles. Women wore caps and bonnets not just to be respectable but to keep hair from getting caught in machines and to fend off dirt and headlice.

Children wore clothes handed down from older family members. Not all families could afford shoes for their children so some had to go barefoot.

             
               Wedding dresses

 The Victorians are known to have created the first white wedding dress. It tended to be lacey and tight fitting at the top, hiding away most skin in that area. The victorians unlike the Elizabethans weren't keen on showing a lot of flesh through their clothing. Kate Middleton got married to Prince William in a Victorian styled wedding dress. This shows that the fashion era's are going around in circles as fashion history is brought to life.