Role Of Clothing In Victorian Era

The era of dandies is what some people call the Victorian Era when thinking about the fashion in Victorian, England at the time. Corsets and crinolines were big in fashion for women during Victorian times. Women wanted to have an hourglass figure where the torso had to be as small as your age. “Victorian clothes were a symbol of who you were, what you did for a living, and how much money was in your bank account” (Rose, Tudor. “Victorian Clothes.” 1). The fashion is forever changing from how it was made, and the style of men’s fashion as well as women’s fashion in the Victorian Era. To begin with, when Queen Victoria was on the throne a major event was shaping how clothing was manufactured and designed. The industrial revolution took the
“For day wear they wore a frock coat with straight trousers, a short waistcoat and a shirt with a high stiff collar” (“Introduction 2). Also, “the single- or double-breasted frock coat fitted quite closely to the torso and had a waist seam” (“Introduction 2). This coat would be the start of how the suits were evolved into what they are today. Suits today are normally a shade of black and during the Victorian times black became increasingly popular. “The color black, introduced during this century as proper for male dress attire, has endured to the present day in the form of tuxedos and formal suits” (Pendergast 586). Another, piece of clothing that helped the creation of modern day suits was the ditto suit. “Introduced in 1860, the ditto suit offered a loose-fitting, ready-to-wear outfit made from the same color and type of fabric” (Pendergast 601). This choice of clothing became more popular towards the end of the century. “Middle-class and working-class men quickly adopted the ditto suit as an easy, less-expensive alternative to the expensive dress clothes modeled by the dandies” (Pendergast 601). While the clothing was a big part of fashion the accessories also were prominent to show your status in
At the beginning of the era, “the natural silhouette was transformed into a dramatic hourglass shape accentuated by a tightly corseted waist, a full bell-shaped skirt, puffy gigot sleeves, and floppy hats” (Pendergast 604). To achieve the full looking skirt the dresses had to be supported by something. “Full skirts were supported on a rigid frame, called a crinoline and later bustles at the rear were the height of Victorian fashion for well-to-do ladies” (Rose, Tudor. “Victorian Dresses). Along with the crinoline women wore layers upon layers of petticoats. “Several layers of petticoats with frilled hems, sometimes of horsehair, were worn to support the full skirts” (“Introduction). The crinoline was made to help reduce the layers of petticoats. “Elegant ladies of the mid-nineteenth century wore very wide skirts, and stiff horsehair crinolines held the skirts out from the body” (Pendergast 598). Later on the materials out of which the crinoline was made of changed. “Around 1850, women were much relieved when a new kind of crinoline was invented” (Pendergast 598). “The hoop crinoline, as it was called, was made of a series of steel rings, which got gradually bigger in size, connected by cotton tape into a sort of cage that fit under a skirt to hold it out” (Pendergast 599). While the skirts were very wide and had a lot of volume