Victorian Women and Fashion...

One defining characteristic of the 19th century is fashion, which underwent a significant change during Queen Victoria's 63 year reign (1837-1901).  Prior to the 1800s, the spread and influence of fashion had been declining since the 17th century, but this decline was quickly reversed.  Both men's and women's fashion changed from decade to decade, and word spread quickly about what was in style that year.  The focus however, was on women's fashion.  In the 1840s and 1850s women wore gowns with lower waists, bell-shaped skirts, and narrower shoulders.  Corsets, a piece of clothing women find very uncomfortable and inconvenient today, were worn under women's dresses during this time.  By the 1860s, the skirts were fairly flat in the front, but extended farther in the back.  Many women also began to wear gloves with their evening dresses, which had low necklines and short sleeves.  In the 1870s, tea gowns (less structured dresses made of lighter fabrics) became increasingly more common.  By the time the 1880s and 1890s rolled around, fashion became a lot simpler.  Dresses were much more loosely-fitted than they had been in the past.  The traditional corsets were rarely worn anymore; rather a new type of corset was made, one that was longer and gave women a different curve to their bodies.  Also during these last few decades of the 19th century, skirts that stopped just above the knee and high necked shirts with puffy sleeves came into style.

Of course, we cannot leave out the last popular piece of Victorian women's fashion, and what probably comes to most of our minds first when we think of this time period, which is the oversized feather hat!  Hats went through a number of different stages throughout the decades, until they finally became extra large, extravagant, and usually with flowers or feathers.  In the beginning of the 20th century, factories began mass-producing clothing and selling them at fixed prices in department stores; same type of department stores as we have today.  The whole idea of department stores and mass-producing clothing was so foreign and shocking to people at the time, but it is something we just take for granted today.  We never really stopped to think about where or when department stores came about, did we?

SOURCES:
http://gallery.sjsu.edu/paris/fashion/
http://www.mostly-victorian.com/fashion.shtml
http://www.victorianstation.com/lifestylemenu.htm
http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/v/victorian-dress-at-v-and-a/
http://siannesvintageloveaffair.blogspot.com/2011/04/photo-inspiration-victorian-fashion.html