I’ve seen a few fashion posts trying to expand the “Marie Antoinette is not Victorian” rant, but this stuff can get complicated, so here is a semi-comprehensive list so everyone knows exactly when all of these eras were.
Please note that this is very basic and that there are sometimes subcategories (especially in the 17th century, Jacobean, Restoration, etc).
Handy, basic visual reference tool.
Then it becomes The Great War, inter-war, The War, The Cold War, the “holy shit not that much war this decade”, and The War on Terror.
Blouse Collars, 1940s-50s - By Charlotte Dymock.
Hey tumblr, have you ever thought to yourself, “dang it’d sure be cool to set a project in something other than the current times,” but when you go to look up references on google, all you get is a horrible historical pastiche of days gone by?
Well boy howdy, do I have a reference for you!
The Wishbook Web has scans of entire consumer catalogs from past decades, ranging from the early 30s to the late 80s. Each catalog has pages upon pages of reference of clothing, accessories, and shoes for all ages, as well as toys, gadgets, and all sorts of junk that you might buy for yourself or your loved ones. While the website exclusively has Christmas catalogs, the photos and illustrations show products that you could use year-round.
this needs a reblog.
Tea Gown
1910
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Boy’s Frock
1850
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Dress
1790s
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Evening Dress
Charles Fredrick Worth, 1881
The Victoria & Albert Museum
“Mogas” (Modern gals), the japanese flappers.
Modern girls (モダンガール modan gaaru) were Japanese women who followed Westernized fashions and lifestyles in the 1920s. These moga were Japan’s equivalent of America’s flappers, India’s kallege ladki, Germany’s neue Frauen, France’s garçonnes, or China’s modeng xiaojie.
By viewing her through a Japanese vs Western lens, the nationalist press could use the modern girl archetype to blame such failings as frivolity, sexual promiscuity, and selfishness on foreign influence. The period was characterized by the emergence of working class young women with access to money and consumer goods. Using aristocratic culture as their standard of Japaneseness, the critics of the modern girl condemned her working class traits as “unnatural” for Japanese. Modern girls were depicted as living in the cities, being financially and emotionally independent, choosing their own suitors, and apathetic towards politics.
The woman’s magazine was a novelty at this time and the modern girl was the model consumer, someone more often found in advertisements for cosmetics and fashion than in real life. The all-female Takarazuka Revue, established in 1914, and the novel Naomi (Tanizaki, 1924) are outstanding examples of modern girl culture.
oh my god this is everything i ever wanted
Dress
1830s
The Philadelphia Museum of Art
Dress
1832
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Evening Dress
1835
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Dress
1838
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
