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    The Victorian Fashion Era and Its Reform: Fashion Theory, Summer 2010 Prof. Bruno Lima Rebecca Glaser

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    Becci Golightly
    The document summarizes fashion trends and dress reform movements during the Victorian era in England. It discusses how Victorian fashion restricted women's movement and promoted fragility. It then covers several key dress reform efforts, including Amelia Bloomer's promotion of loose trousers, the Rational Dress Society's opposition to corsets, and the Aesthetic Dress movement's emphasis on natural forms. The document concludes that these reforms had lasting influences on making fashion more comfortable and opening it to self-expression, and that their styles occasionally experience revivals today.

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    The Victorian Fashion Era and Its Reform: Fashion Theory, Summer 2010 Prof. Bruno Lima Rebecca Glaser

    Uploaded by

    Becci Golightly
    73 views15 pages
    The document summarizes fashion trends and dress reform movements during the Victorian era in England. It discusses how Victorian fashion restricted women's movement and promoted fragility. It then covers several key dress reform efforts, including Amelia Bloomer's promotion of loose trousers, the Rational Dress Society's opposition to corsets, and the Aesthetic Dress movement's emphasis on natural forms. The document concludes that these reforms had lasting influences on making fashion more comfortable and opening it to self-expression, and that their styles occasionally experience revivals today.

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    Victorian Fashion

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    The document summarizes fashion trends and dress reform movements during the Victorian era in England. It discusses how Victorian fashion restricted women's movement and promoted fragility. It then covers several key dress reform efforts, including Amelia Bloomer's promotion of loose trousers, the Rational Dress Society's opposition to corsets, and the Aesthetic Dress movement's emphasis on natural forms. The document concludes that these reforms had lasting influences on making fashion more comfortable and opening it to self-expression, and that their styles occasionally experience revivals today.

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pptx, pdf, or txt
    73 views15 pages

    The Victorian Fashion Era and Its Reform: Fashion Theory, Summer 2010 Prof. Bruno Lima Rebecca Glaser

    Uploaded by

    Becci Golightly
    The document summarizes fashion trends and dress reform movements during the Victorian era in England. It discusses how Victorian fashion restricted women's movement and promoted fragility. It then covers several key dress reform efforts, including Amelia Bloomer's promotion of loose trousers, the Rational Dress Society's opposition to corsets, and the Aesthetic Dress movement's emphasis on natural forms. The document concludes that these reforms had lasting influences on making fashion more comfortable and opening it to self-expression, and that their styles occasionally experience revivals today.

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    The Victorian Fashion Era and

    its Reform
    Fashion Theory, Summer 2010
    Prof. Bruno Lima
    Rebecca Glaser
    The Victorian Era
    • Stretched through the reign of
    Queen Victoria (1837-1901)
    • Beginnings of many artistic styles, social, political
    and religious movements
    • Time of “repression” and “prudishness”
    • Very codified and strict in every area of life
    • But also the beginning of the Modern Times
    • Left marks in many areas of today’s life

    Victorian Fashion
    The Role of Women

    • A woman’s place was the home


    • Career for a woman was marriage
    • “Groomed like a racehorse”
    • Sing, play an instrument, speak some French/Italian
    • Innocent, virtuous, biddable, dutiful, ignorant of
    intellectual opinion
    • Woman was expected to be weak, helpless, a fragile
    delicate flower
     Reflected in their garments
    Clothes as a Status Symbol
    • Social differences were indicated
    through
    garments
    • Wealthy wife dressed as her
    husband’s social representative
    • Etiquette rules
    o Up to six (!) garment changes a
    Working class women
    day fifth-hand clothes or rags were
    o 3 fashion seasons a year usual
    o Occasion dictated clothes
    (morning, walking, town, visiting,
    receiving visitors, traveling,
    shooting, golf, seaside, race,
    concert, opera, dinner, ball,
    mourning)
    The Trouble with Fashion
    • Tight fitting corset in a V-shape
    emphasized small waist
    • Gigot sleeves collapsed
    • Collapsed sleeve much narrower
    • Restrictive seam line on the dropped
    shoulder
     Caused women to not move their arms. ”Increased
    the appearance of demure, fragility, vulnerability,
    helplessness.”
    The Early Victorian Silhouette
    • Bell shaped skirts  dome
    shaped hobble skirts
    • Stiffened linen with horse
    hair, six petticoats (14 lbs)

    • Evening dresses fully expose


    a woman’s shoulders
    • Exposure was restricted to
    middle and upper classes!
    • “The high water mark of
    modesty would ebb after
    sunset some six inches” C.W.
    Cunnington
    The Key to History: Form and Fashion

    • http://www.mccord-museum.qc.ca/scripts/projects/CH/anim
    CH.php?tourID=VQ_P2_17_EN&Lang=1&type=flash
    The Victorian Dress Reform - How it
    Relates to “Fashion Theory”
    “No matter in which time period, the definite Essence of fashion is
    Change.” (Kawamura)
    “Fashion is an ideology of Social Change. Change must be
    Possible and Desirable.” (Polhemus)
    “A change in fashion is always initiated from the Upper Class.”
    (Simmel)

    “Anti-Fashion is as much a creature of fashion as fashion itself.


    Whatever form anti-fashion takes it must via some symbolic device of
    Opposition, rejection, Studied Neglect, parody,
    satirization, etc. to the ascendant or “in” fashion of the time.” (Davis)
    Starting a Reform – Amelia Bloomer

    • Along with social reforms came an


    attack of the whole concept of
    fashion
    • Amilia Bloomer, editor of “The Lily”
    • Promoted idea that women should
    abandon petticoats for baggy
    trousers like those of Turkish women
    or Central Asian women  Adopt
    fashion concepts from other
    cultures!
    • Reached and gathered at ankles,
    topped by a short skirt and vest
    • Only worn by a minority
    • After Bloomer’s death  Accepted
    cycling wear
    “Bloomers”
    The Rational Dress Society (1881) – or why
    we wear trousers today
    • Drew attention to restrictive corsetry and the immobility caused by
    fashions of the day
    • Sold boneless stays and promoted fashions that did not deform the body
    • No woman should have to wear more than 7 lbs of underwear
    • There is no such thing as a good pregnancy corset
    • Woman should participate in „healthy“ cycling (accidents)
    • Rational dress (dual garment) was adopted 1895 by a handful of privileged
    women!
    • Lady Harberton was refused admittance for refreshments
    at the coffee room at the Hautboy Hotel
     Lawsuit, public attention  Anti-Fashion becomes Fashion!
    The Aesthetic Dress Movement
    • Started in intellectual and artistic
    circles
    • Artificiality of fashionable dress
    went against nature and thus
    destroyed the beauty of a
    woman's natural form
    • Adopted a revival style of
    romanticized medieval influences
    and on draperies from old Greece
    • Public could see historic and
    aesthetic dress in paintings and on
    women who attended exhibitions
    at the Royal Academy, London
     Influence on interior design,
    manners, lifestyle
    The Impact of Dress Reform on Fashion

    • All efforts towards reforming dress


    had a lasting influence
    • Loose full trouser style occasionally
    sees revival as fashion today
    • Modern pencil skirts derived from
    hobble skirts
    • Women became accustomed to
    wearing more comfortable clothing
    in their homes and during sports
    • Actresses, dancers, and singers
    wearing artistically designed dresses
    on stage and in public
    • Opened the way for haute couture
    designers whose gowns reflected the
    reform style, e.g. Jacques Doucet
    and Lucille, Vionnet and Chanel.
    Key Take-Aways for Fashion Theory
    • Changes in society can trigger changes in fashion ( fashion as as an
    ideology of social change)
    • Fashion is more than just clothing, it is a large array of human activities,
    beliefs and artifacts (Sumner)
    • Every anti-fashion will become fashion at some point
    • Different cultures have always been an inspiration for fashion
    (“Bloomers”)
    • The removal of rigid dress codes has enabled individual to use fashion as
    a means for self-expression (which today is taken for granted)
    • Fashion can be seen as a circle, trends will revive at some point
    (“Aesthetic Movement”)
    Sources
    • Samantha Holland - Alternative femininities: body, age
    and identity
    • http://costume.osu.edu/exhibitions/reformingfashion
    • http://www.fashion-era.com/aesthetics.htm
    • Yuniya Kawamura – Fashion-ology
    • http://www.victorianweb.org/art/costume/nunn5.html
    • http://www.buzzle.com/articles/victorian-fashion.html
    • Clothing as a Sign System
    Questions?

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