OVERVIEW OF GLOBAL FASHION INDUSTRY

THE VICTORIAN ERA 1850-1900

BY: HARENDER SINGH PAWAR AANJANA RATHORE

SUMEDHA KATOCH CAUVERY KARUMBAIAH

FEBINA MOHAMMED
Introduction
The British queen,Victoria, has given her name to the era between 1837 and 1901, the years of her
reign, the longest of any British ruler.The Victorian era was a period of world as well as British history,
for the queen ruled at a time when Britain had a vast global empire, including a quarter of the planet’s
population.

It was a time of massive social change. Railroads were built across America and Europe, where many
new industries developed. Britain led the way in manufacturing, earning the nickname the “workshop of
the world.”The growth of British industries drew vast numbers of people from the countryside to rapidly
growing towns and cities. Between 1837 and 1901, the population doubled, from 18.5 to 37 million. By
1901, three quarters of British people lived in towns and cities. Clothing was transformed by factory
production, and by new inventions such as the sewing machine. Cheap clothes could now be mass
produced.

The period saw the birth of a true fashion industry, with the first department stores, fashion magazines,
and mail-order catalogs, allowing people living in Melbourne and San Francisco to follow the latest
European styles. Just as people have always done, the Victorians used clothes as a type of language,
sending signals to others about their class, status, and attitudes. In the Victorian age, the language of
clothing was understood by everybody, who could instantly place someone’s social position by their
dress. It was also international: in Moscow or New York, a Victorian gentleman could be recognized by
his tall silk hat and gold-topped cane.

PERCEPTION ABOUT FASHION

The nineteenth century was an age of satirical cartoons and writings— works poking fun at the
foolishness of people’s behavior. Throughout the Victorian age, every new fashion would be similarly
mocked. More than any previous people, the Victorians were aware of how fashions had changed over
the course of history.

Women Clothing
A middle- or upper-class Victorian woman was not expected to do any work, for she had servants to do
everything for her. Her role was to be the “chief ornament” of her husband or of her father’s household.
According to the journal The Saturday Review, “It is the woman’s business to charm and attract and to
be kept from anything that may spoil the bloom of her character and tastes.” woman’s shoulders, now
covered her whole body, from the neck to the feet. Shoulders were only revealed by evening dresses
worn at balls and dinner parties.Wide hats, worn until the late 1830s, went out of fashion, giving way to
narrow bonnets, tied under the chin, which covered the sides of a woman’s face. It was fashionable to
look small like Queen Victoria, who was five feet (1.52 m) tall, so women wore flat shoes, like slippers.
The preferred colors of the 1840s were modest dark greens and browns.

Corset
Beneath her dress, a woman wore several layers of petticoats and a tightly laced corset, stiffened with
strips of whalebone, which stretched from her chest down to her hips.This was thought to be medically
beneficial, helping to support a woman’s weak body. A tightly laced corset was also considered a sign of
a good character. A “loose woman” was one who behaved in an immoral way. Tight corsets affected the
way that women moved.

Tight lacing made breathing difficult and led to fainting fits. Such fits were fashionable, for they
demonstrated that a woman was delicate and needed to be looked after.

Bloomers and Crinolines

In the early 1850s, skirts grew wider with every year. The effect was achieved by wearing up to twelve
layers of petticoats, including ones stiffened and padded with horsehair. Such clothes, both heavy and
hot, were the most uncomfortable worn by women throughout the nineteenth century. People began to
look for alternatives

Bloomers
In 1851, Mrs. Amelia Jenks Bloomer, editor of a New York ladies’ paper, The Lily, promoted a new
costume for ladies combining a jacket and a light, knee-length skirt over baggy trousers, which were
tight at the ankles.

Crinoline
1856 saw the invention of a set of light steel hoops worn under the dress.This was called an artificial
crinoline, originally the name of the stiffened petticoat, from crin (horsehair).The lightness of the
garment was welcomed by women, and all classes quickly took to wearing crinolines.The earlier
stiffened petticoats were forgotten, and the name crinoline now applied only to hoops

Men Clothing
As women’s clothes were growing more impractical to wear, men’s fashions went in the opposite
direction. In the 1840s, men gave up wearing jackets with tiny waists and padded shoulders. Bright
colors and stripes were replaced by dark blues, browns, and blacks.The high cravat, which took so long
to put on, disappeared, replaced by a readymade neckpiece, called a stock, or ties with simple
bows.There was much less variety of headwear, as men took to wearing top hats made of felt and silk.
The Sewing Machine
The first effective machine was the work of three American inventors:Walter Hunt, Elias Howe, and Isaac
Merrit Singer. sewing machine that used thread from two different sources. A curved needle with an eye
at its point passed one thread through a piece of cloth, making a loop on the other side.Then a shuttle
passed a second thread through the loop, making a “lockstitch.” In 1846 Elias Howe patented a machine
which operated in the same.Singer’s first sewing machine was powered by a handcrank, labelled “D”

Effects on Fashion

The sewing machine allowed clothes to be mass produced cheaply in factories. It also changed fashion,
for it made it much easier to add decorative trimmings to dresses. In the 1870s

Invention Of Artificial Dye

Until 1856, all clothes were colored with dyes made from natural products such as plants, minerals,
insects, and shellfish. natural dyes were often expensive to produce. Over time, the colors of naturally
dyed clothes also faded, as a result of sunlight and washing.

William Perkin,In 1856 an eighteen-year-old English chemistry student named William Perkin was
attempting to make artificial quinine, a drug to treat malaria ,ended up accidently making artificial dye. .
Perkin had invented the first artificial dye, a bright purple, which he called mauveine. Unlike cloth dyed
naturally, cloth colored with mauveine did not fade over time. Mauveine was also cheap to produce, for
coal tar

Father Of “HAUTE COUTURE” –CHARLES FREDERICK

WORTH(1825-95)
Bought the concept of exclusive high fashion. Worth was an expert designer, who saw himself as an
artist, not a craftsman,Worth dressed the royal courts of Europe.the Paris fashions invented by Worth.
The Stages of Life
Like people throughout history, the Victorians used clothes to mark the different stages of life, from a
child’s white christening robe to a bride’s white dress and a widow’s black veil. Growing up was marked
by boys putting on long trousers, and girls wearing longer dresses and pinning their hair up.

Occasional Clothes
A striking feature of the Victorian period was the number of times each day that upper- and middleclass
people changed their clothes. Different dresses and coats were worn in the daytime and in the evening,
and there were also particular outfits for different activities, such as horse riding or playing tennis.

According to The Habits of Good Society (1855), “There are four kinds of coat which a well dressed man
must have; a morning coat, a frockcoat, a dress-coat, and an overcoat.” The frock coat was a jacket with
a long, square front, while the morning coat had swallowtails. Both came in a variety of colors and were
worn during the daytime. In the evening, men dressed for dinner, switching to formal evening dress,
consisting of black trousers and a tailcoat, a low black or white waistcoat, a starched white shirtfront,
and a white bow tie.

Leisure Wear
Upper- and middle-class Victorians enjoyed many different sporting and leisure activities, including
riding, hunting, fishing, boating, cricket, golf, tennis, croquet, archery, ice-skating, and hill walking.
Different leisure activities demanded different sets of clothing. In 1884 The Gentleman’s Fashion
Magazine pronounced, “Every man with a grain of respectability, on the river puts on white trousers,
with white flannel shirt, straw hat, striped flannel coat.”

Working Clothes
The commonest sight in any Victorian town was of men in black suits.This was like a uniform, worn by
businessmen, bank managers, store assistants, railroad station masters, teachers, civil servants, and the
many thousands of office clerks.The black suit was an ideal garment for wearing every day in a town
where the air was smoky from coal fires. Its color also suggested that the wearer was serious and
trustworthy.The dark suit, still worn in offices around the world today, is one legacy of the Victorian era.

Late Victorian Fashions: 1860–1901

From the 1860s until the end of the Victorian era, women’s fashions went through major changes as the
crinoline fell from favor. Late-Victorian women aimed for a curving “hourglass” figure with a tiny waist
and large hips and bust.This was achieved with long, shaped corsets which were tighter laced than at
any time since the 1830s.The fashionable female shape also grew taller and more imposing, with high
heels and hairstyles piled up on top of the head. Men’s fashions, as always in the nineteenth century,
saw only minor changes.

In the 1890s, the clothes of both men and women grew simpler, with a greater emphasis on comfort
and freedom.The impractical bustle disappeared from women’s dresses. Men of all classes began to
wear informal straw hats. For formal occasions, comfortable soft shirts replaced the heavily starched
shirtfronts of the previous decade. In 1898 The Tailor and Cutter journal predicted that the starched
shirtfront would be “of considerable interest to the future historian of the sartorial [clothing-related]
instruments of torture of the nineteenth century.”

Timeline
1851 The Great Exhibition in Britain includes displays of fashion and textiles.
Amelia Bloomer promotes a trouser costume for women.
Isaac Merritt Singer produces an improved sewing machine.

1854–6 The Crimean War, in which Britain,France, and Turkey fight Russia,leads to the introduction
of looser tunics for the military.

1856 The steel-hooped crinoline is invented

William Perkin makes the first artificial dye, from coal tar.

1857 Charles Frederick Worth opens the first haute couture business, in Paris.

1861 The death of Prince Albert. Queen Victoria goes into mourning dress.

1861–5 The American Civil War,fought by the North in dark blue and the South in gray uniforms.
1864 The first dresses with bustles are made.

1870s Crinoline makers go out of business.

1883 The wide “shelf bustle” becomes fashionable.

1885 The publication of Little Lord Fauntleroy leads to a fashion for boys’ velvet knee-breeches.

1888 John Dunlop invents inflatable bicycle tires.The resulting cycling craze makes it acceptable for
women to wear knee-breeches.
The first Sears Roebuck mail-order catalog is produced.

1892 The zip fastener is invented by Whitcomb Judson.

1901 The death of Queen Victoria.