#victorian hairstyle

[edwardian-girl-next-door]

La Mode Illustrée 1874

via autumnarisal on pinterest

[thepastisalreadywritten]

The 19th century was an interesting time for hair and fashion in general.

Many cultural changes were occurring. Europe and America alike saw many integral style periods, all of which gave birth to hairstyles of their own.

The women who lived during the Victorian era opted for more sober and subdued styles, in contrast to the trends prior to that time.

The women earlier would go in for elaborate hairstyles and extravagance. Pomp was the highlight of that time.

Women during the Victorian era liked their hair to be healthy, glossy, soft, and smooth.

This enabled them to style it as well as keep it simple and uncomplicated. The hairstyles symbolized elegance and dignity.

The women oiled their hair to smoothen it and added big curls or tiny ringlets. Fringes were not uncommon.

However, these were also not very flashy. They were simply cut and styled. During the day, women used to don hairnets to keep the hair from coming undone.

It’s important to understand that most ladies of this era had long hair. This gave them something to work with when rolling or plaiting hair into various styles.

However, just as with women today, not everyone’s hair was thick and luxuriant. For that reason, many women employed false hair.

False hair came in a variety of forms, including invisible tufts, comb tufts, plaits, ringlets, and pads.

For an exact match, many women made their own hair pieces—also called “rats”—out of the hair that was leftover in their hair brushes.

Queen Victoria was a fashion icon in her own right.

In the early years of her reign, she inspired the “Apollo Loop” in which a plain or coiled plait of false hair was attached onto wires to create eye-catching loops worn vertically on top of the head. But the use of elaborate wigs made way for cleaner, gentler looks.

The Victorian period of fashion was about living more simply than in the previous era.

Hairstyles eventually became more natural and demure with hair parted in the middle, drawn into a bun or coil, with curls allowed to fall loosely at the sides of the head.

Hairstyles mirrored the aspirations and social changes occurring within society during this era.

The Industrial Revolution saw the rise of the middle classes and brought new fashion for clothes and hair.

By the 1850s, women wore hairstyles incorporating hairpieces purchased from the new department stores.

Additionally, women began using soaps to clean their hair, but this act would strip away oils, leaving the hair stringy and dry. Products to restore hair’s luster included vegetable oil and even bear grease.

Towards the end of the 19th century, the Marcel Wave, invented by Marcel Grateau’s “curling iron,” became a popular hairstyle that enabled the creation of a more natural-looking wave as opposed to a curl.

NOTE:

In 1872, a French hairdresser named Marcel Grateau created a curling iron, which was made up of tweezers in the shape of tubes; the first one concave, and the other one convex. These tubes were heated to curl the hair.

Victorians associated hair with life and love, therefore, it was traditional for women to incorporate lockets of hair into mourning jewelry after the passing of a loved one.

(Photo credit: Chertsey Museum / Flickr / Pinterest / Wikimedia Commons / Victorian Era Blog / Encyclopedia Britannica)

Updated on: January 9, 2023

[fannyrosie]

Last weekend, @apple-salad invited me to her amazing Rococo Bouquet afternoon tea. Victorian Maiden released many versions and cuts of their Rococo Bouquet series over the years, and I own the Bustle Long Skirt (2011 edition) and the Mermaid skirt (2007 edition), both in blue flowers.

Pictures of the afternoon tea and Rococo Bouquet group HERE

Outfit rundown Skirt: second-hand Victorian Maiden Bolero: second-hand Mary Magdalene Blouse: The Floral Notebook Shoes: second-hand Innocent World (they died completely after those pictures) Bag: second-hand Mary Magdalene Hat: Anonhat Cameo: vintage Wedgwood Brooch: Axes Femme Earrings: vintage Gloves: vintage

[la-belle-histoire]

Portrait of Maria Ivanovna Kochubey-Baryatinskaya, Christina Robertson. 1840s.

[marzipanandminutiae]

Madame Marzi I must defer to ur wisdom

Recently you rb’d a painting with some younger ladies and in the tags talked a bit about short hair in Victorian Times

Do you have any reference for how shorter hair was styled at the time? I’ve seen plenty of paintings and such with VERY short hair (post illness or perhaps childbirth) where all you can really do is smooth it back, but what about that awkward, past the shoulders sort of stage where it’s too long to just brush back but too short to do much to? Surely they had some styling guides..?

(Also, a side question— how old would one be before going from shorter skirts to adult/full length ones?)

The two little girls in the garden (probably preteens-young teens)? Yes, I did!

It's hard to find images of women with in-between hair lengths, and I'm not sure why. Possibly because they'd find ways to put it up with false hair, whereas hair too short to put up is more obvious in photos. This could also have to do with the type of woman who has pixie- or bob-length hair voluntarily vs. mid-length: the latter is more likely to be attempting a grow-out, and thus to try her darndest to do The Culturally Accepted Long Hair StylesTM where a lady who chose a much shorter look wouldn't care. If that makes sense? Because, indeed, some of the women with very short hair were not ill or postpartum: ladies could, and did, choose to eschew long locks back then. It wasn't very common, but it happened.

(Nicole Rudolph has an excellent video about localized short hair trends for ladies during the Victorian era.)

You see a lot of these bob-type looks in photographs where the hair is center-parted and either naturally curly or curled on purpose, around the mid-19th century:

(1850s or 60s)

(Author, feminist, and abolitionist Anna Elizabeth Dickinson- no relation to Emily that I know of, though Anna was also a queer female writer around the same era -c. 1860s. She wore her hair short all her life, so it was voluntary in this case.)

(Also 1860s.)

Pre-Raphaelite muse Fanny Eaton frequently appears to have chin-to-shoulder length hair, though given that she was Black with a corresponding hair texture, it's hard to tell what the actual length is- it may be long and looped up in the 1850s-60s styles popular when she was most commonly painted (most free Black women in England and the US wore styles also popular with white women, to the best of their abilities given that fashion plates assumed European-textured hair as the "norm"):

(Fanny Eaton, 1861. Also worth noting that we have no images of what her hair looked like when she wasn't posing for fantastical paintings.)

I've never actually seen an image of a Victorian woman with mid-length hair outside the context of theatrical or artistic images from the end of the century, now I think of it. Huh. It's a mystery, I suppose!

As for skirts, while in earlier periods children had basically worn miniature adult clothing, it became fashionable around the 1830s-40s to dress girls in short skirts and boys in short pants. The usual rule was knee-length until around age 10, then mid-calf-length until somewhere between 16 and 18 when skirts would be "let down" and the girl would start wearing her hair up, becoming a young adult in the eyes of society. (Contrary to popular belief, this had nothing to do with marriage- while you were theoretically eligible for it when you started dressing as an adult, girls/women younger than 20 were still often considered a bit too immature to marry. It wasn't forbidden, but many people thought it unwise. And yes, unmarried young women did still wear their hair up and their skirts long.)

...unless she preferred her hair short, which as you can see, was an option!

[thelibraryghost]

A Young Person's Introduction to Late 19th-Century Western Fashion

hello fellow youths

General information Banner, Bernadette. "Exposing Victorian Influencers Who 'Facetuned' Their Photos. (Photo Manipulation was EVERYWHERE)." YouTube. July 17, 2021. English Heritage. "Fashion Through History: Episode 1 – Victorians." YouTube. February 9, 2023. Lady Rebecca Fashions. "100 Years of Fashion // The Fashionable Plus Size Silhouette from 1820-1910." YouTube. June 5, 2021. Victoria and Albert Museum. "100 Years of Fashionable Womenswear: 1830s – 1930s | V&A." YouTube. July 18, 2023. Zebrowska, Karolina. "Victorian Fashion Is Not What You Think It Is." YouTube. March 19, 2019.

Accessories Banner, Bernadette. ""Afro-Victorian": Bringing Historical Black Women's Dress into the 21st Century w Cheyney McKnight." YouTube. October 20, 2021. Cox, Abby. "A Fashion Historian Explains the History of the Handbag." YouTube. January 26, 2023. Rudolph, Nicole. "Dangerous Things in Victorian Pockets : Mens Pocket History." YouTube. March 2, 2024. Rudolph, Nicole. "The Controversial History of Color Season Analysis." YouTube. November 4, 2023. Zebrowska, Karolina. "Disgusting and Creepy Victorian Fashion Trends." YouTube. October 17, 2018.

Bustles and hoopskirts Donner, Morgan. "Weirdest Victorian Invention: The Bustle-Chair (and we made one)." YouTube. November 20, 2020. Lady Rebecca Fashions. "100 Years of Underwear // The Changing Plus Size Shape from Regency to Victorian to Edwardian." YouTube. May 1, 2021. Lady Rebecca Fashions. "All About Bustles! A Deep Dive into 1870s Fashions." YouTube. December 26, 2023. Rudolph, Nicole. "Why were Victorian Hips Controversial?" YouTube. September 12, 2021.

Cosmetics Birchwood, Vasi. "1800s Makeup Is Not What You Think." YouTube. July 21, 2023. English Heritage. "Queen Victoria Makeup Tutorial | History Inspired | Feat. Amber Butchart and Rebecca Butterworth." YouTube. May 20, 2019. Zebrowska, Karolina. "I Used Only Victorian Cosmetics For a Week." YouTube. July 26, 2023.

Fabrics Rudolph, Nicole. "Did Silk Spontaneously Combust in the Victorian Era?" YouTube. August 8, 2021. Rudolph, Nicole. "The History of Elastic." YouTube. July 4, 2021. Rudolph, Nicole. "The Truth About Arsenic in the Victorian Era." YouTube. January 24, 2021.

Gowns Bullat, Samantha. "Dress Historian Analyzes Victorian Mourning Clothing of the Mid-19th Century." YouTube. March 14, 2021. Lady Rebecca Fashions. "All About 1860's Fashion // What did Civil War-era fashion look like?" YouTube. November 12, 2022. Lady Rebecca Fashions. "How did fashion evolve from 1850-1859? // 1850's Fashion Deep Dive." YouTube. October 1, 2022. Rudolph, Nicole. "Victorian Fast Fashion? The Truth about the History of Disposable Clothing." YouTube. February 6, 2022. SnappyDragon. "Were the Pre-Raphaelites painting accurate medieval dress . . . or Victorian fairtytalecore?" YouTube. April 26, 2024. Zebrowska, Karolina. "19th Century Fashion - How To Tell Different Decades Apart?" YouTube. November 17, 2017.

Hair care and styling Banner, Bernadette. "Following a Victorian Home Made Hair Care Routine (1889)." YouTube. September 11, 2021. Lady Rebecca Fashions. "Getting Dressed in an 1888 Daisy Costume // Easy Bustle-Era Hair Tutorial." YouTube. November 13, 2020. Lady Rebecca Fashions. "Getting Dressed in the 1870s & 1874 Hairstyle Tutorial." YouTube. February 23, 2020. Rudolph, Nicole. "Why did Victorian Women Cut their Hair Short?" YouTube. December 18, 2022. Laundry and housekeeping English Heritage. "A Tour of the Laundry - The Victorian Way." YouTube. September 6, 2019. English Heritage. "How to Wash Up - The Victorian Way." YouTube. March 18, 2021. English Heritage. "Laying the Table at Christmas – The Victorian Way." YouTube. December 14, 2022. Walkley, Christina, and Vanda Foster. Crinolines and Crimping Irons: Victorian Clothes: How They Were Cleaned and Cared for. Peter Owen Limited: London, 1978.

Outerwear and working wear Birchwood, Vasi. "What Irish Working Women Wore in the Late 19th Century | I Made the Clothing of My Irish Ancestors." YouTube. June 23, 2023. English Heritage. "The Real Mrs Crocombe | Part Four: A Victorian Cook's Outfit." YouTube. July 5, 2018. Stowell, Lauren. "It's Hot: Let's Look At Some Bathing Suits." American Duchess. August 18, 2023. Rudolph, Nicole. "The History of Jeans, T-shirts, and Hoodies: Time Travel 101." YouTube. March 20, 2022. Zebrowska, Karolina. "The 1851 Women's Pants That Made The Victorians Go Crazy." YouTube. March 2, 2020.

Shoes Rudolph, Nicole. "100 years of Antique Boots." YouTube. February 10, 2024. Rudolph, Nicole. "How to Make Regency & Victorian Shoes: Beginner Shoemaking." YouTube. June 27, 2021. Rudolph, Nicole. "The Myth of Tiny Feet "Back Then"." YouTube. September 26, 2021.

Undergarments Banner, Bernadette. "I Wore a (Medical) Corset for 5 Years. How do Victorian Corsets Compare?" YouTube. November 7, 2020. Banner, Bernadette. "Making Some Frilly Victorian Underwear || 1890s Combinations." YouTube. February 9, 2019. Birchwood, Vasi. "What Victorians Wore to Bed." YouTube. May 5, 2023. Cox, Abby. "I made weird Victorian underwear (it's a knit onesie) & a pretty 1890s corset || historical sewing." YouTube. March 21, 2021. Lady Rebecca Fashions. "How 8 Different Historical Corsets Affect the Same Plus Size Body." YouTube. December 12, 2020. Rudolph, Nicole. "100 Years of Corset History: How 8 Corsets affect the same body." YouTube. November 29, 2020. Zebrowska, Karolina. "How Did Victorian Ladies Stay Warm in Winter? || THE EXPERIMENT." YouTube. January 22, 2021. Zebrowska, Karolina. "How Did Victorian Women Deal With Their Periods?" YouTube. October 17, 2019.

[simstomaggie]

Simblreen 2022 Treat #1: Rosa Hair

This was the first of my Simblreen Gifts! The theme of my Simblreen Gifts for this year was a Ball in a noble house! I’m always looking for more “era appropriate” hairs that work well for my black sims, which is why I made this one as soon as I saw that super cute new BG hairstyle.

it comes in the 24 ea swatches

base game compatible

hat chops

disallowed for random

if you notice any glitches or problems, let me know!

ps: please note that, in case you downloaded this hair from me last week, this one has a new file name. while the file itself is the same, it's probably best not to have a duplicate!

TOU:

Please do NOT claim as yours.

Do NOT put behind paywalls.

Do NOT reupload.

DO recolor (without the mesh please!)

DO use for mesh edits

PLEASE give proper credit

HAVE a good time

Download on Patreon (for free, no early access!)

IF YOU’D LIKE TO SUPPORT ME, YOU CAN BECOME A PATRON, OR BUY ME A KO-FI. THANKS ♥

cc: @maxismatchccworld @mmfinds @mmoutfitters @public-ccfinds @simshistoricalfinds ♥

[clove-pinks]

Nathaniel Prentiss Banks by Southworth and Hawes photographers, 1852 (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston).

[jessicas-pi]

She did not shrink back, though the pupils of her eyes dilated. Was it the wildest thing in the world which happened to her—or was it not? Without warning—the sudden rush of a thought, immense and strange, swept over her body and soul and possessed her—so possessed her that it changed her pallor to white flame. It was actually Anstruthers who shrank back a shade because, for the moment, she looked so near unearthly.

“I am not afraid of you,” she said, in a clear, unshaken voice. “I am not afraid. Something is near me which will stand between us—something which DIED to-day.”

---

behold: my artistic contribution to the small but enthusiastic You Should Totally Read The Shuttle (1907) By Frances Hodgson Burnett campaign

[fashion-from-the-past]

[hoopskirtsociety]

Historical Hair Fashion Details in Art. Artist

Joseph Karl Steiler

[stuckasmain]

Time period

I love the flash, the sparkle, the drama of the musicals costuming, I do. However I have to gush for a second about just how dedicated the movie was into making the costuming and set scream 1899. I’ve only seen the movie version once (I plan to rewatch) but they did such a good job in those aspects it is burned into my brain and I just have to talk about it. Now , no it’s not 100% period accurate as some of the stage costumes are absolute camp and sparkled beyond reason but it’s  aesthetic and stage costumes of the time would be off the rails too so I can look past it.

Something I love particuarly is that all the men who visit the club are dressed for the occasion, it’s White tie! It’s a big deal! (White tie is the most formal, above even black tie events). Except Satie, he gets a pass, love the scarf. I don’t know what it is but seeing proper formal wear? Yes.

Two things here.

One- the way Satine applies her makeup, there’s a reasoning “painting one’s face” is a saying, lipstick had a brush, mascara was a brick with a little comb to apply etc. It’s that the makeup is accurate to the time and they put that effort into it? They could have easily just had he apply from the tube and most people wouldn’t be the wiser but they didn’t!

Two- CHRISTIANS SIDE BURNS???? HELLO?! This 👏 a lot of period productions hate sideburns and hate actual historical hairstyling’s (the amount of women with long, straight, unstyled hair is horrible) and almost forget men can do their hair differently from one another etc? No but I like it particuarly on Christian as he’s much more “clean cut” and “with” the fashion compared to his friends.

Three- alongside hairstyle is wearing a hat outside/when appropriate. A lot of pieces hate hats just as much as they hate proper hair and corsets

So it’s known Toulouse, Nini and La chocolat (male version in movie) were historical figures but the just… how sort of spot on John Leguizamo looks for Toulouse Latrec freaks me out? Lmao

[alexanderpearce]

tried an 1890s hairstyle today for my dracula tute!! done with rag curls and bobby pins. x x

[fannyrosie]

Le temps des cathédrales

On my birthday (August 3rd), I went to see Notre-Dame-de-Paris with my mom and sister at la Place des arts. As someone who's been listening to it since 1998 (and read the novel later), it truly felt like I've missed out on seeing it live, especially since I saw the biggest France/Québec musicals from the early 2000s when they came out (namely, Roméo et Juliette, Don Juan and Dracula), as well as Starmania (not when it came out, obviously). Even though the current Notre-Dame-de-Paris show isn't with the original cast (except for Daniel Lavoie!), it was really amazing.

Of course, me being me, I did a themed outfit.

Outfit rundown Dress: second-hand Moi-même-Moitié Bustier: second-hand Victorian Maiden Blouse: La petite garçonne Bag: second-hand Moi-même-Moitié Shoes: Yosuke Headdress: handmade by me Jewellery: mix of vintage, Design Festa, second-hand Moi-même-Moitié and thrifted

[la-belle-histoire]

The Cup of Tea, Alfred Stevens. 1874.

[atropos-moth]

1830's hair styles that need to come back into fashion immediately