#fashion history

[historical-fashion-polls]

[jewellery-box]

Dress, c. 1820, England

Silk, tulle, silk satin

Blue striped silk ball dress with boat neckline, short wide gathered sleeves trimmed with ivory pleated tulle ribbon. Gown with blue silk satin waistband (with embroidered ivory spikelets) with a brass buckle (covered with floral enamel), maxi length skirt (knife pleated on the top at the front and tightly gathered in back).

Alexandre Vassiliev Foundation

[frostedmagnolias]

Wool Gown

c. 1887-8

The John Bright Collection

[eirene]

Ved stranden i Hellerup. Frk. Elisabeth Fischer og frk. Anna Pauline Bruun en sommerdag på stranden i Hellerup, 1894 Paul Fischer

[artschoolglasses]

From the Gazette du Bon Ton, 1922

[resplendentoutfit]

Mario Reviglione (Italian, 1883-1965) • Portrait in black of Mrs. Levi Muzzani • 1916

Fur was everywhere in the 20s. Both men and women were resplendent in fur. Fur-trimmed collars and cuffs adorned coats and jackets. Full-length all-fur coats of mink or sable were only affordable to the upper classes. People of lesser means made do with squirel or beaver.

Lord & Taylor silk coat, lined with fox fur • 1920s

Wrap coats such as the one above were very popular, both for day and evening. It's not clear if the one above was meant to be worn as an evening coat but I suspect it was.

These fashion plate examples are more accurate examples of fir-trimmed coats worn in daytime.

Fur was popular in previous eras of fashion history as well. And, of course, remained popular for many decades to come. Thankfully, this trend was called to attention in the 1980s for its unnecessary cruelty.

[clove-pinks]

Le jour de l'an, by Paul Gavarni, 1835.

New Year's day gifts, like les étrennes? Another 1830s doll, and a bust of Napoleon on the mantel.

[lapinlavande]

solid perfume necklace in the shape of a mussel from estée lauder, 1974

[marzipanandminutiae]

I was about to be irritated at a shitty "kids' education" website on 1770s clothing but then I learned that there's a staymaker buried at King's Chapel and now I'm just delighted to know the gravesite of a clothing worker from that era and I want to take him flowers

[achronalart]

FWIW, "mauve" was one of the coal-tar dyes developed in the mid-19th century that made eye-wateringly bright clothing fashionable for a few decades.

It was an eye-popping magenta purple

HOWEVER, like most aniline dyes, it faded badly, to a washed-out blue-grey ...

...which was the color ignorant youngsters in the 1920s associated with “mauve”.

(This dress is labeled "mauve" as it is the color the above becomes after fading).

They colored their vision of the past with washed-out pastels that were NOTHING like the eye-popping electric shades the mid-Victorians loved. This 1926 fashion history book by Paul di Giafferi paints a hugely distorted, I would say dishonest picture of the past.

Ever since then this faded bluish lavender and not the original electric eye-watering hot pink-purple is the color associated with the word “mauve”.

[die-rosastrasse]

François Martin-Kavel & pink fabrics

French, 1861-1931

[historical-fashion-polls]

submitted by @downtonbaddie7 💙🩷

[jewellery-box]

Wedding dress, American, silk, c. 1851.

This wedding dress presents a conundrum in that some stylistic aspects of the dress appear to be later than the marriage date of 1851 provided in the original accession records. While the bodice has very fashionable full size pagoda sleeves, which were a new shape in 1851, the skirt with bustle, train and ruffles at bottom is more consistent with the 1870s rather than the dome shape of the 1850s. While it is possible that the skirt was re-made for a later bride, there is no obvious indication of that being the case. Wedding clothes have traditionally been vehicles for fantasy and historicism, however, which may be the case in the styling of this one. It nevertheless is a grand dress made for a wedding in Grace Church, a high society Brooklyn house of worship.

The MET Museum

[basiliskonline]

@lingerie_addict has a really cool thread on ancient fashion over on twitter.

Those source links are here

cambridge.org

Youtube

ucl.ac.uk

[eirene]

Apollonia van Ravenstein photographed at Oliver Messel’s house in Barbados wearing Saint Laurent Rive Gauche. British Vogue, July 1973.

Photographer: Norman Parkinson

[frostedmagnolias]

Cape

Late 1890s

The John Bright Collection