A Victorian Lady's Guide to Fashion and Beauty

by Mimi Matthews

‘Although the present styles of toilette partake of the purest elegance, they are divested of all unnecessary and gorgeous decorations.’

Bodices of the 1840s were long and tight-fitting, coming to a distinct point at the waist. They generally fastened at the back with buttons, laces, or hooks, making it difficult for a lady to dress and undress without assistance. In ladies’ magazine of the day, a bodice was often referred to as a corsage.

Unmarried young ladies were discouraged from wearing lace caps indoors. However, if they were over the age of twenty-seven and still unwed, they were considered to have entered the realm of spinsterhood, thus making a demure lace cap appropriate for indoor wear.

The 1850s was a decade of bright colours, exotic fabrics, and womanly curves. Gone were the restrictive Gothic gowns of the 1840s. In their place were distinctively feminine frocks with flowing, pagoda-style sleeves and impossibly full skirts supported by the newly introduced wire cage crinoline.

One of the most notable events of the 1850s – at least in terms of women’s fashion – was the 1856 invention of the wire cage crinoline. Made of graduated hooped wires secured by fabric tape, this technological marvel could accommodate skirts that were fuller and heavier than ever before. As a result, during the years from 1856 through 1866, skirts grew to their largest proportions of the century. By the end of the 1850s, it sometimes took as much as eighteen yards of fabric to complete a gown.

‘They tell us, again, in a bustling street Our Crinolines hurt their poor legs or feet. Not badly, I trust, — ’twere the doctor to pay, My recipe is, keep out of our way.’

During the 1850s, many young ladies fell into the odd habit of putting their parasol handles against—or even into—their mouths.

As the 19 September 1889 edition of the St. James’s Gazette explains: ‘No woman who wore high heels had the full use of her life, nor of her brain possibilities’.

Victorian women weren’t entirely excluded from the game. In fact, the first women’s golf club was founded in 1867 at St. Andrews in Scotland.