>Dressgasm of the Day: 1850s-60s Mourning

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Today’s dressgasm of the day is a black silk taffeta dress from the mid-nineteenth century, most likely the late 1850s into the early 1860s. This dress has a lower waist than the mid-1860s dresses, which were cut above the natural waistline, so I’m inclined to think this dress was either made before the Civil War or altered after the war to reflect the return to a natural waistline. If it was altered after the war, however, I feel that the women would have changed the outdated pagoda sleeves to reflect the more modern form fitting sleeves. The silk taffeta itself is unique and gorgeous with alternating light and dark stripes created by switching the direction of the weave in the silk. That is my best estimate from seeing other silk taffeta dresses made in a similar fashion. It may also be achieved by adding wool into the weave to make it darker. There were a lot of tricks back then to create illusions with different types of fabric getting woven together.

I believe that this dress was used for mourning. The lack of embellishment on the dress itself suggests the simplistic look that someone in the deepest stage of mourning was supposed to display. A widow, for example, typically went through different stages of mourning for about two years before she could fully rejoin society again. The stages of mourning ranged from solid black and seclusion to wearing purple and slowly rejoining society in the later stages.

It is a common misconception that people never wore black unless they were in mourning. On the contrary, black was a fashionable color. What made a black dress a mourning dress was how it was worn. There would have been black edging on the collars and undersleeves, or they would have been totally black. Jewelry would have been kept simple and made of materials like jet or hair from the recently departed. A simple black bonnet with a heavy long black veil hid the widow from people if she was to be seen anywhere in public. Women were not allowed to attend social functions in the earliest stage of mourning if they could possibly avoid it. If she went to a wedding, she would have stayed in the back of the church separated from the congregation as to not cast a dark shadow over the joyous day.

Men, on the other hand, generally only mourned for six months before it was acceptable for them to remarry. It seems a little unfair, right? Children were not exempt from mourning rituals either. They typically wore white gowns with purple and black accents.

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>Dressgasm of the Day: 1780s-90s Pink Silk

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My knowledge of eighteenth century fashion is not as extensive as my knowledge of nineteenth century fashion but I am still learning. This dress appears to have come from the later part of the century after the stomacher and panniers had largely gone out of fashion. The material appears to be silk for both the gown and the petticoat. There are delicate pink roses scattered over the fabric, giving the appearance of nature in a time when getting back to the natural way of living was becoming fashionable once more. Three-quarter length sleeves were common and fashionable as well. What makes this dress interesting to me is the crisscrossed strips of pink silk over the bodice, under the neck kerchief.

There are several differences between the way women dressed in the eighteenth century as opposed to the nineteenth century, although they may look quite similar to the untrained eye. Women of the nineteenth century would rather die than have their petticoats exposed, for example. It would be like you walking around in public in your underwear. In the eighteenth century, however, the petticoat was considered an important part of the ensemble. It was worn under the gown, as you see above, and was not thought of as part of the underclothing.

Another marked difference in fashion between the two centuries was the use of stays rather than corsets. A corset, used in the nineteenth century, was the foundation piece to a woman’s look and it was designed to give her a highly desirable hourglass shape. Women of the previous century wore stays, which were shaped like hard undershirts and were designed to push up the bust, give upright posture and give the illusion of the waist being narrow by coming to a point. Another difference between shapes of the different centuries was the use of panniers versus hoops. Panniers were worn in the eighteenth century and designed to give the hips a wide, square appearance. By the last decades of the century, however, panniers were given up by the majority of women in favor of a more natural silhouette (except those at royal courts). The natural silhouette lasted through the first few decades of the nineteenth century until more and more petticoats were needed to give the fullness the skirts required for fashion. In the 1850s, a cage crinoline was used to eliminate some of the petticoat weight and give the huge bell shape.

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>Dressgasm of the Day: 1860s Purple Silk

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Today’s dressgasm is this lovely rich, deep purple dress from the early 1860s. I know very little about this dress or where it came from but I believe the fabric is silk moiré with deep burgundy trim looping around the shoulders and bust, and edging the simple pagoda sleeves. It appears that the bodice is hook and eye front closure. The cut and design of the dress is rather simple and universal among daytime clothing for women of the period, but it is the fabulous silk moiré that makes this piece outstanding.

The types of fabric available to people in the nineteenth century were much more limited than today. I generally divide the four major fabric groups into cotton, linen, silk and wool. These fabrics were often blended together for appearances, cost effectiveness or sturdiness.

Silk was the most expensive of these fabrics and there were several types such as moiré, watermark and taffeta. I see taffeta far more often than other types of silk. Silk in general was a sign of style and wealth, and every woman no matter her economic class aspired to own a “silk,” which was how they referred to these dresses. This dress, made of silk moiré, was most likely worn by a woman of decent wealth. My interpretation is she either had it designed in a simple style to let the fabric take center stage, or she had saved the money to buy her “silk” and couldn’t afford much embellishment. Victorians, by definition, decorated and embellished everything that would hold still within an inch of its life, so I find this dress fascinating in its simplicity. It speaks to me more because the woman who wore it didn’t overdo it. I imagine her to be unselfish, lacking vanity and being thankful for the life she led that allowed her to afford such a stunning piece of rich purple silk moiré.

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