English Costume of the Nineteenth Century
by John Laver and illustrated by Iris Brooke
Let´s start with the facts: Corsets were a part of everyday Victorian life and they were considered underwear. Thus, they were worn under the dress and no one got to see them. In a time when bras did not yet exist, women needed something to support the upper body. Tada, the corset came along. Soon, tightlacing became a fashion fad: Ladies laced their corsets extra tight to make their waist look small in comparison to curvy hips and a big bosom.
Here´s another secret: Victorians liked curvy women. A misconception is that back in the Victorian era everyone loved “fat” women. This is true to the extent that the ideal Victorian woman was “voluptuous”: She had a round face and round arms, big thighs and a big bosom, but also small feet and a tiny waist - achived by wearing a corset.
In a lot of modern novels and movies Victorian women are portrayed as slender and tall - but this is only today´s beauty standard and it is a false portrayal. Victorian women may seem thin in old photographs but if you look closer you´ll notice that only their waists are thin. Therefore, the only authentic portrayal of a Victorian or Edwardian lady in a movie I have seen is Rose in Titanic.
Back to the corsets. A Victorian woman would not just put on a corset, lace it to eighteen inches and be done with it. It´s not that easy. She would start by reducing her waist only a little bit and lace her corset tighter and tighter over the course of weeks and months. When the corset can´t be laced any tighter, she will have a new one made. Reducing the waist to the legendary eighteen inches of actress and Gibson Girl Camille Clifford (the girl in the white dress) would take a lot of time and it would probably hurt.
Victorian girls started young: Some wore corsets when they were mere children, most started when they were about 14 to 16. Victorian diaries reveal that most girls loved their fashionable corsets but hated the pain they caused them. A lot of them even had night corsets that would not be laced as tight as day corsets. But even so, they wore corsets all the time, even at night. But once the waist was the desired size corsets would not hurt them anymore or even be uncomfortable to wear.
But, and that´s another misconception, not all Victorian women tight-laced. Tight-lacers were soon regarded as fashion victims and considered silly. Though corsets were worn extra tight by the 1890s, not all women laced themselves to 18 inches like Miss Clifford did.
And last but not least the biggest lie of all: There’s a rumour going around that some Victorian ladies had ribs removed to be able to lace their corsets even tighter. Should you come across this story, do not believe it. Back in the 1800s and early 1900s surgery was still very dangerous and the chance of dying was very high. No lady or surgeon would have risked death for a smaller waist. After all what is now considered a minor surgery (appendix removal) killed London´s stage Beauty Gaynor Rowlands (the girl in the black dress) when she was just 23.
Fascinating information!
Huh. As someone who adores Victorian fashion, this is extremely cool.
A rare vintage photograph of an onna-bugeisha, one of the female warriors of the upper social classes in feudal Japan.
Often mistakenly referred to as “female samurai”, female warriors have a long history in Japan, beginning long before samurai emerged as a warrior class.
Day dress
1874
The Philadelphia Museum of Art
Dragon Hairpin
Late Qing dynasty
China
Dress
1870s
The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Dress
1873
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
THE MODE IN HATS AND HEADDRESS
By R. Turner Wilcox
Dress
1880
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Dress
1885
The Philadelphia Museum of Art
I was derping and found some absolutely stunning kingfisher inlay. I remeber totally getting sidetracked by it when I supposed to be researching something elese back in the day.
Each piece is inlaid with kingfisher feathers and ‘beads’ of coloured glass. They are attached to a silver backing and are decorated with (probably) imitation pearls.
The use of kingfisher feathers in Chinese ornaments has a long history but very often because of the materials they don’t survive. As a result, there is little information available describing how kingfisher feather ‘enamelling’ was actually undertaken. Obviously, the first step would have to be catching on of those birds without damaging it too much and stripping it of all its feathers. Each feather was then taken out and painstakingly glued to a silver backing. The base was likely prepped before hand with different partitions to create a specific shape. The whole process of inlaying with the feathers was called tian-tsui ‘dotting with kingfishers’. As feather inlay must have been such a fiddly and infuriating process no doubt these pins would have been super expensive.
Kingfisher feathers were most used for hair ornaments and less often in fancy hats. Shown here is a a phoenix crown that was typically worn by empresses in earlier Chinese dynasties but was a garment that was appropriated by other segments of Chinese society in formal occaisons like marriage. These crowns were often formed over copper wire and then covered with kingfisher feather inlay in the shapes of flowers, butterflies, phoenixes, pearls, and mirrors.
I found a super indepth article on it here and probably. DON’T GLAZE OVER.
Dress
Rouff, 1905-1907
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Emperor’s Twelve-Symbol Dragon Robe
China, 1821-1850
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art
