Victorian Era: 1837-1901

Victorian Era: 1837-1901

By Ladies Tiffany Cox and Shea Stooksberry

Casual Wear and Shoes

Length, Undergarments, and Waistlines

Seasonal Wear

History...

• Women's casual wear consisted of a light fabric, that was generally dark, and would be accessible for movement for chores and everyday things for their gender. They wore half boots with thick soles for casual wear.
• A sack coat was worn by the men in the Victorian era casually. Men liked square toed shoes.

• In the summer, women still wore long skirts and sleeves but it was made out of a lighter material.
• In the winter women wore heavy coats and thicker material in dresses
• Men wore wool coats in the winter and gloves

• The length of women's dresses during this time were strictly below the ankle of a woman, anything higher was scandalous
• A woman's undergarments consisted of Bodices, corsets, petticoats and chemises
• The waistline of women was placed a little below the waist to give a more hourglass figure to the woman
• The waistline for men was set above or on the navel, particularly shown in the pants.

• This time period is named after the famous Queen Victoria, who reigned for 20 years in England. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence for Britain.
• Strayed away form rationalism to romanticism
• During the Victorian age, Britain was the world's most powerful nation. Though not always effortlessly, it was able to maintain a world order which rarely threatened Britain's wider strategic interests.
• The single European conflict fought during Victoria's reign - the Crimean War of 1854 - 1856 - contrasted markedly with the 18th century, during which the British were involved in at least five major wars, none of which lasted less than seven years.
• Because of the Industrial Revolution, more fabric was being made therefore The rise of the economy allowed to make more elaborated clothes.
• Bustle is one word that came from the Victorian Era, which is A general term referring to back fullness in a skirt. Bustles were an important element of style in women's skirts from about 1870 to 1890. As well as Crinoline, which was replaced by the Bustle, and Knickerbockers
• One of the most distinctive pieces of clothing in this era were hats and bonnets for the women which were made in every imaginable color.

1901

1837

Formal Wear

Pants, Hats, and Hair

Colors and Celebrities

• Brown, black, dark green, dark purple, Navy blue were among the most popular. there was a lot of soot about because of the coal fires so things got dirty easily, and hence dark colors would not show grubbiness so easily. Back in Victorian times looking clean was a never ending job, so wearing something light colored was asking for trouble, only the very wealthy who didn't have to do their own cleaning would wear light colored clothes.
• Among the popular celebrities, the most well known were, of course, the poet Lord Alfred Tennyson, and Charles Dickens

• Men did not wear their pants pressed with a crease, but rather with a flat front. Lengths of pants did vary slightly over the decades, from the shortest cut that caused the pant to hang completely straight to the longest, in which the trouser hung to the bottom of the heel of the boot. Men wore trousers that had stripes and sometimes checks which they often paired with different patterns, stripes or checks.
• Top Hats were de rigueur for parties and formal events throughout the century, but were also worn as day wear by the established gentleman..A variety of other hat styles persisted, including the wide-brimmed “wide awake” style and the flat topped “pork pie” which were seen through the period. Derbies or bowlers, short-brimmed with rounded crowns, became more common as the century progressed and by the mid 1890's outnumbered most other hat styles.
• The women's head pieces evolved over time. During the early part of the Victorian Era, the head pieces were modest in size, like bonnets. However as time progressed, the skirts of dresses were smaller and flatter, which gave way to more big and elaborate headdresses.
• Men's hairstyles were relatively short but styled and combed, and they had rather large sideburns on the sides of their face, with, sometimes, elaborate facial hair.
• Women would wear their hair up and was sometimes made by hairdressers. they consisted of loose curls and sometimes fake hair to add definition. some popular hairstyles were sugar curls and the Marcel wave.

• Ball dresses were plunged of the shoulder, neckline was plunged and they were interchangeable with the casual wear. They wore thin sole slippers with these outfits.
• Waistcoats and cummerbunds provided a touch of color to formal clothing and the dressing gowns and smoking jackets were heavily embroidered in oriental designs.