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ashions of the Ages 1850-1870 The Era of the Hoop
An American suffragist and reformer, Amelia Bloomer led the forefront of dress reform in the 1850's propagating what became known as The Bloomer Costume (originally designed by Elizabeth Smith Miller), a very modest ensemble consisting of a knee length gown worn over demure Turkish trousers. It is a measure of how severely cumbersome and repressed mid-19th Century Western women's clothes were that a garment worn by conservative Moslem women was so comparatively freeing in style that it actively shocked most contemporary observers.
Only a small percentage of the female population ever wore The Bloomer Costume, but periodic attempts at dress reform continued throughout the rest of the 19th Century, exerting a growing influence on fashionable dress.
Fashionable women enjoyed a slight dress "reform" of their own in the 1850's by the adoption of the Hoop Skirt. The hoop (or Crinoline as it was named after the former petticoats of horsehair), liberated women of the weighty, hot unsanitary bulk of petticoats, and gave free movement to the legs. The tendency of the hoop to flip up showing the legs, also required women adopt a version of the bloomer trousers as underwear. The earliest hoops were rigid iron that had a tendency to thwack the unhooped sex in the shins. As a consequence, when added to the horror of seeing one's female dependents wearing (oh!) bifurcated garments beneath the hoop, men were appalled, and tried to put a stop to the fashion by decrying them from newspapers and the pulpit, ridiculing them in song and poetic lampoon, and mercilessly caricaturing them in cartoons.
The benefits of the hoop for the wearers, however, insured that women defied disapproving fathers and husbands in droves, and iron quickly gave way to more forgiving spring steel wire, which made larger and larger skirt foundations light enough to be possible. Women's dress in the era 1850-65 gets progressively larger and more horizontal in outline. Gone are all the lines pointing down, and women in fashion illustrations get a slightly more assertive look in their expressions, more often looking out at the viewer at eye level.
By 1860, the hoop itself was so large and awkward it was in itself oppressive. The shape of the hoop began to become ovoid, with the bulk of the skirt trailing behind the wearer. In 1866 the size of the hoop began to diminish somewhat, and the ovoid trend continued, slowly turning, by 1870, into what they called the Tornure or Bustle. The result was to give the female figure a forward leaning stance, rather like the prow of a ship. Men's dress in this era continued the trend towards decreased individuality of style, crossed with increased technical perfection of manufacture.
Facial hair gained in popularity in the 1850's, 60's and 70's, not really going out of fashion until after 1900, and then only gradually.
Men's dress found the form that it has held in modified form to this day in this era, formalizing the suit into a uniform worn by men in all strata of income in varying degrees of quality. Dress in The First and Second Bustle Periods Fashionable women's dress in the era of the 1870's and 1880's, while looking quite modest to modern eyes, was viewed as unashamedly erotic in it's own day. The bustle, the cornerstone on which women's dress depended, focused the majority of the decoration and clothing focus on a woman's backside, and emphasized the movement of that body part to heroic proportions.
The dress of the first bustle period (1870's) is noted for the lightness of it's material and decoration, swathing the lower reaches of a woman's body in numerous ruffles and pleats, often in light colors using the new and vibrant aniline dyes.
Late in this decade (1878-79) was the "Fishtail" style, where the lower part of the skirt was tight, and ended in a train.
The second bustle period (the 1880's) is heavier, with decoration more resembling upholstery style. Colors get more Jewel-toned and velvets, heavy satins and brocades replace the taffetas and cottons of the 1870's. Surface decoration is often of passementarie or jet beads, giving the whole ensemble a more mature flavor.
Men's dress in this era continues in it's general dullness but begins to be enlivened with sportswear, an area that continues to provide the most intriguing variants of men's dress. Dress during the 1870's and 1880's came more and more under the influence of the Rational Dress Movement and the Aesthetic Movement. Dress reform from artists, feminists and socialists provided a continuous counterpoint to the more frivolous dress of fashionable women, and the more tedious dress of fashionable men.
Dress reformers of the Aesthetic movement such as Oscar Wilde promoted jewel-toned velvet suits with breeches for men, but only found a lasting audience among mothers who dressed small boys in "Little Lord Fauntleroy" suits in this style. Caricaturists such as George du Maurier simultaneously lampooned the Aesthetic dress even as they spread it's influence. The Gilbert and Sullivan opera Patience spread the Aesthetic style to America, with costumes from Liberty Co. where it was transformed in the following decades into the Arts and Crafts Movement. Women's aesthetic dress, with it's semi medieval lines and uncorseted waists were transformed by popular taste into the Teagown, a fashionable lady's at home garment. Rational dress advocates like George Bernard Shaw tried to popularize Jaeger combination suits (which resembled woolen long johns), but were laughed off the streets. Dr Jaeger's more conservative ensembles of wool knickers and a Norfolk jacket however were accepted as men's sportswear even among the fashionable.
Dress at The Turn of the 20th Century Women's dress in the 1890's continued to be built in a sturdy, heavy, upholstered style, but the silhouette changed to that of an hour glass. Female bodies were corseted to a small waist, and then padded in the buttocks, hips, bosom and sleeves to exaggerate the apparent wasp-waisted effect.
Hats began to grow larger in the 1890's, a trend that continued steadily until 1911.
Men's Dress in the 1890's took a turn towards greater formality and dandyism in Europe, and went in the opposite direction in the U.S. where the popular mode was brightly colored sportswear.
American men of around 1900 tried to emulate the image of the "Arrow Shirt Man" drawn by J.C.Leyendecker, with brightly colored shirts and hard white tubular collars worn under the sporty Sack Suit jackets, that had recently moved up from sport clothes to business wear. During this period in the US, the European fashion for Frock coats like the Prince Albert Coat and the Cutaway is gradually displaced by the sack, so much so that even rich American men sport an evening version of the sack, the Tuxedo, to male only parties and semi formal events. The Hourglass shape of the woman of the 1890's transformed after 1897 into the "S" curve of 1897-1908. This change came from longer lined "health" corsets that supported the spine and abdomen, especially when they were over-laced by the fashionable. Fashionable women in this period seem to be leaning into a wind. The curvaceous clothing line of this period meshes perfectly with the curving lines of the dominant decorative style of the day, known as "Art Nouveau".
Most women's dress in this era was highly influenced by the advancing feminist cause, which after 1903 escalated to widespread civil disobedience by "Suffragettes" (radical suffragists). Women modeled their behavior and appearance upon the Gibson Girl the popular image of the "New Woman". Men's clothing styles such as the suit, shirt, hard collar and tie were worn by women forcing themselves into professions formerly occupied by men. Health fads of the 1890's and 1900's also encouraged women's sporting activities, particularly bicycling, which, in turn promoted sport clothing as a fashion.
Dress reform, continued to be a hot topic in this period, even gaining such notable adherents as Mark Twain. Artists such as Mariano Fortuny in Italy and the Wiener Werkstaette group in Austria continued to design Aesthetic reform costumes such as Fortuny's Delphos Dress, and dress became progressively more comfortable, practical and aesthetically pleasing in this whole era. The beauty of the designs worn in this era are so apparent that the period 1890-1914 is commonly called la Belle Époque ("The Beautiful Epoch")
Women's clothing after 1900 became lighter and lighter in construction and materials. A popular style in this period was the "Lingerie Dress" a feather-light white cotton dress inset with strips of open work lace and net.
After 1908, women's dress became more vertical in line, and less "S" curved. The vertical line became so pronounced after 1910 that highly fashionable dresses tended to hobble the wearer. Corsets began to be replaced by brasseries and other light foundation garments.
The Ballets Russes production of Sheherazade, designed in 1910 by Leon Bakst, pushed Paris fashion towards an Orientalist style in the early Teens, a fashion which was to give birth to the "Art Deco" style. As a result of the Orientalist style, Parisian designer Paul Poiret again introduced "harem" pants for women, although they were, again, not widely adopted.
Costume after 1911 again goes into a sharp transition period, which continues until the early 1920's and ushers in the Modern period of dress.
Dress from WWI to WWII The First World War (1914-1918) had a pronounced effect on women's fashion in the Western world. Several trends that had roots in the decades prior to the war, were rapidly accelerated by wartime conditions. The most lasting change happened to women's hemlines. Hems which had risen from floor length to ankle length prior to the war, rose to mid calf length by 1916, and have stayed that high, or higher, ever since. Hobble skirts were instantly jettisoned in favor of slightly wider more practical skirts. Several avant-garde fashions, like women's trousers, and short hair, decried before the war as sinful and ugly, were promoted as practical fashions for war work. The Pope even issued a bull during the war declaring that short hair for women was not immoral, and was a necessity for many factory workers. Most women did not suddenly cut their hair, but once it became acceptable to do so, gradually more and more women did in the following decades.
The tendency for female office workers to wear feminized versions of men's suits and shirts (common since 1900) became virtually standard by this time. Soft V-necklines, considered racy in 1912-14, during a time of high boned necklines, became normal daywear after 1915. Large numbers of women were recruited into military organizations on all sides, and put into a variety of uniforms, which also influenced the shape of fashionable dress. During the war, a dye shortage, and fabric shortages encouraged a certain utilitarian drabness in dress, but the most noticeable change engendered by the war was a relaxation of the formal rules of attire which had bound men and women's dress since early in the Victorian era. Not only did women's hemlines rise to mid-calf length, but more exciting yet, ladies wore these shorter styles with sexy heeled shoes and flesh toned silk stockings, not high button boots. Young men wore the more casual "Tuxedo" jacket to formal evening occasions, not just to men's only club functions. Young and daring women dumped the corset in favor of brasseries. Army officers wore Wristwatches instead of pocket watches, and soft "lingerie" shirts with soft collars attached to them. Tail coats and frock coats began only to be worn on highly formal occasions, to be almost fully replaced by the modern sack suit. This is why clothing after the 1914-1918 War period is instantly recognizable as "Modern" to our eyes. Orientalist fashions continued to be popular, and were eventually stylized into a form which came to be know as Art Deco, the dominant style for fabric decoration and interior design until WWII. Notable European designers like Erte, Poiret, Chanel, Barbier, Vionnet, Zamora and Delaunay all worked in this style through the succeeding decades. Click here to read about men's & women's fashions from 1500-1603 All text and photos on this page are courtesy of www.costumes.org |
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1851, Mrs. Bloomer in the costume she wore as a response to the restrictive petticoats of the 1840's-50's. 
Second Empire Fashion plates from Petit Courier des Dames 1852-5 provided by Acarter of eBay
