Victorian clothes

[Jan65]

Hi all

I'm fascinated by the clothing worn by our ancestors in Victorian times but know very little about it other than what I've seen on telly in period dramas, which strangely enough considering my obsession with history, I very rarely enjoy (an exception being Cranford which was brilliant).

Anyway, I digress! For instance, one specific thing I'm curious about is, what would a working class girl wear on her wedding day in July 1834 (in the North East of England)? Would she wear something special or just her ordinary clothes? What would she wear on her head?

Can anyone direct me to a website on Victorian clothing? I absolutely yearn to picture my ancestors and not have them just as names on a tree, and since I don't have many old photos, trying to picture their costumes would help me so much!

Janice

[Jan1954]

Hello Janice,

Virtual Victorians (http://www.victorians.org.uk/) is a good place to start. You can explore the pages to find out all about the lives of our ancestors - including the clothes that they wore. Click on the "Themes Gallery".

Also, a perusal of www.
vam.ac.uk/index.html"]V&A Museum would not go amiss.

[Jan65]

Hi Jan

Once again, in the space of a few minutes, you come to my aid! Many thanks for these links, I'm off for a browse right now!

Janice

[Davran]

Hi Janice

I don't know where you are located, but a visit to a costume museum would help you get the idea of the fashions of the time. There is a list here www.
fashion-era.com/museums.htm. Obviously, working class women would wear clothes that were less ornate or up-to-the-minute fashion, but I think they probably tried to be as fashionable as they could, especially for their 'best' clothes.

[Jan65]

Hi Janice

I don't know where you are located, but a visit to a costume museum would help you get the idea of the fashions of the time. There is a list here http://www.fashion-era.com/museums.htm. Obviously, working class women would wear clothes that were less ornate or up-to-the-minute fashion, but I think they probably tried to be as fashionable as they could, especially for their 'best' clothes.

Thank you for this link, Davran, much appreciated. I agree that to visit a costume museum would be wonderful, I hope I can find one reasonably near to me.

Janice

[Jan65]

I know that the wedding I'm interested in was just before the Victorian era but thought that things probably wouldn't be too much different from the early years of Victoria's reign. I've read various things that make me wonder whether a working class wedding was such a special occasion in the past or as I've read more than once, just another day. I would hope it was special because that might be the only special day that my ancestors had in their lives - or am I just being miserable?!

Janice

[Davran]

Janice, I found that link through Google and it said there was a list of museums, but I've just been browsing the site and can't find a list! :o Sorry! I know there is a museum at Bath and I think there is one in Nottingham - try googling yourself!

[Jan65]

Hi Janice

I don't know where you are located, but a visit to a costume museum would help you get the idea of the fashions of the time. There is a list here http://www.fashion-era.com/museums.htm. Obviously, working class women would wear clothes that were less ornate or up-to-the-minute fashion, but I think they probably tried to be as fashionable as they could, especially for their 'best' clothes.

Well whaddayaknow! The Bowes Museum - not too far from me - has a costume collection. It's years since I visited and now I want to go again RIGHT NOW. But will have to wait until next weekend perhaps. Thanks Davran for reminding me of this museum, I can't wait!

Janice

[Jan65]

Janice, I found that link through Google and it said there was a list of museums, but I've just been browsing the site and can't find a list! :o Sorry! I know there is a museum at Bath and I think there is one in Nottingham - try googling yourself!

Our messages crossed in the ether Davran! I found the list okay, hence my message re Bowes. Thanks again! J

[AnnR]

It probably depends what you mean by working class. If they were living in poverty then its unlikely there would be spare cash for anything and everyday clothes would be worn. With a little more available a new outfit that could be worn regularly afterwards. But some working class women actually had a reasonable amount to spend. If she was working outside the home in a factory for instance, but still living with her family, cash wouldn't be so tight until she had her own family to support. I remember seeing the episode of Who Do You Think You Are, with Barbara Windsor and it was suggested that the Bryant and May match girls were well known for following fashion and having the latest style of hat! Recently I was reading up about Cornish Bal Maidens (women mine workers) and again it was often commented on at the time that for Chapel on Sunday, or for Church organised weekday evening social events, the girls and young women would be wearing the latest fashions. Although not earning anything like as much as the men, compared with working in service etc they were relatively well paid, and because the work could be dirty and hard, when they weren't working they made the most of it and liked to put on their finery. Although neither of those are the North East, it could well be that there were similar standards.

[pottoka]

I have heard that it was Queen Victoria who introduced the white wedding dress - although it would actually have been ivory or off-white to us.

The working classes had to be practical and wear a dress which could be used in the future. Black dresses were very practical as they would be used for mourning. The Victorian era was also the time of the invention of chemical dyes, beginning with mauve, so a wedding dress might be a darker coloured dress than a more day-to-day one made from fabric dyed with vegetable dyes. But that again might be out of the reach of most.

[Jan65]

Hello AnnR and Pottoka, thank you very much for your input. The girl in question was the daughter of a master mariner who very probably was a Captain by the time she married in 1834. There didn't seem to be many children in that household - only one, younger, brother that I know about - so given her dad's occupation and the small household I think she would have been better off than many at that time, although unfortunately I have absolutely no idea whether she was working herself at the time. I suspect not to be honest - at least my idea of a ship's captain is that he would have not expected his daughters to work nor would they have had to, I imagine. But this is only my thoughts, perhaps someone else knows differently.

I do know that they lived in an area of newly-built houses rather than in one of the older, poorer, areas of town, so this gives me some idea of their lives and status - although the houses weren't grand, but certainly a lot better than most, and new too.

From what you've said, and what I've already surmised myself, I think that she would probably have had a new, nice outfit, and maybe a new hat or bonnet, but something that was still practical that she could wear again afterwards perhaps for Sunday best and her future children's christenings. I think it was too early for her to have had a white/ivory wedding dress, as you say pottoka.

[Penny Gallo]

Do check first that any museum found an internet link is still open. They have been targeted for easy closure in the UK as they have no equivalent body to the Arts Council to fight for them. For example the Nottingham Museum of Costume & Textiles closed except for research in Sept 2003 (I know, I used to work there), and is now being dismantled completely after the sudden death of the curator. Others such as Leicester's Costume Museum, Strangers Hall at Norwich, the Platt Hall collection at Manchester and the Textile Conservation Centre at Winchester have all been closed or threatened with. There is a good free one at Derby (Pickford House) but there too the local Council repeatedly tries to close it down.

I'm lucky enough to have a personal collection, so I was like a child in the sweet-shop working in the museum. A few years ago, there was a marvellous daytime television programme where the husband and wife team from Platt Hall - Mark someone (name will come back to me), actually dressed a young farming couple from Yorkshire whose dream it was to have a reconstruction of a typical early Victorian country wedding. The curators made the wedding dress based on original ones, hand-stitching it, and the guests were all dressed from film costumiers. It was fascinating as they researched local Yorkshire customs as well, which included breaking a huge bread/cake over the bride's head!!! I seem to remember there was also a race involving all the young men, and the bride throwing her garter rather than her bouquet.

Yes, thoroughly agree with the comments about coloured dresses above. A working woman would try if possible to have a new frock, but it would be a sensible colour and become best dress for some time to come. Often they would later be cut up to make clothing for the children. Even middle class women in Victorian times would have fewer clothing than the majority of women today, and even when the white wedding came in, the dress would be dyed afterwards, perhaps first red and then finally black, to eke out its useful life.

The former Museum in Nottingham had the original wedding clothing of a ploughman and his wife from the 1870s on display in one of the Period Rooms - brown dress and bonnet for her, skimpily made and poor quality fabric when examined closely. Relatively little working-class or occupational (different thing) clothing survives as it got "handed down" (named after the secondhand clothing hung up on hooks outside shops), cut up into children's clothing or for patchwork or dusters.

[Jan65]

Hi Penny - good point so I checked and Bowes is still open, I've suggested a nice family outing, weather permitting, next weekend and am already looking forward to it.

Your job at the museum sounds as though it was really interesting, and to have a personal collection is amazing. I once saw a fantastic red military uniform on the Antiques Roadshow that had been worn by its owner's great x many grandfather, in something like the early 1800s, and if I remember rightly he was thinking of selling it! What sacrilege! If I owned something that had actually been worn by an ancestor of mine I couldn't begin to think of selling it.

[Penny Gallo]

... when people who have been bequeathed something aren't interested. I'm an avid fan of the Antiques Roadshow, although I always wince when they handle textiles with their bare hands.

Luckily my Mum saved some of the lovely dresses she wore/made at the time she was an art student at the Royal Academy School in London (late 40s, early 50s), together with her wedding dress, which the dressmaker made with the wrong side of the fabric outwards (gold with silver threads rather than vice versa). She wore it with a swan'sdown cap and had a dolly bag made out of the fabric. Most of the older family things we have are buttons and shoe buckles (who has a button box now?). I always tried to get the story behind the clothing and make sure it's documented.

The Victorian clothing is fascinating, and I marvel at the amount of work, quantity of material and the sumptuousness of the trimmings. My favourite is a "Princess line" (a slimline, close-to-the-body, all-in-one style with darts at the waist) dress in two shades of pale grey, part satin, part a finely textured silk. It has a train, the fashionable large side-pocket of 1876-8 (the pickpocket's delight!) and beautiful chevron trimmings. Sigh..... Of course, I would have been the poor drudge stitching it, not the elegant one wearing it.

[Jan65]

[QUOTE=Penny Gallo;219812Sigh..... Of course, I would have been the poor drudge stitching it, not the elegant one wearing it.[/QUOTE]

Well, lucky you, I'd have been your assistant! That dress sounds beautiful, but I wouldn't like to be corseted into something like that myself! Nice to see other people wearing, maybe not so nice to wear yourself unless you were the equivalent of Keira Knightly, or Victoria Beckham, maybe! Nice to swoon over though. Wish I had something like that. The oldest dress I own is my own wedding dress, 23 years old. Still, someday it'll be a cherished priceless heirloom, I hope.

[Penny Gallo]

I don't think it was quite as bad as we think wearing some of the clothing - provided you had a good quality corset, that is! If you look at Victorian photos of elderly workingclass women you can sometimes see a line above their bosom where their corsets no longer fit properly and are sticking out. The excessive tight-lacing was restricted to the real fashion-victims of the day, or indeed to male fantasy, and in photos there was sometimes a bit of retouching-on-the-negative help with the hourglass waistline!

What I find astonishing is how much women managed to do in all that get-up, like the 1880s ladies climbing in the Alps. One of the most fascinating books is about the peculiar but useful Arthur Munby who was obsessed by working women. I've just tried to find a link to his photos, but everything seems to be gender/class discourses about his relationship with his Domestic Servant Hannah, so I'll mention "Victorian Working Women: Portraits from Life" by Michael Hiley (ISBN 0 86092 033 X) which has excellent photos of Maids of All Work, Pit Brow Lasses, Milkwomen, fishergirls, sackmakers, Dust Girls, Irish 'peasantry', Papermill Girls, women brick- and chain-makers, as well as risque trapeze artistes. These are photographs that give a clear idea of just how hard and dirty work could be for Victorian women. Two contrasting photos of a 17 year old collier show Ellen Grounds firstly wearing her working costume of headscarf, loose overall top, skirt tucked up to mid-thigh over trousers and clogs, then the Sunday Ellen in fashionable 1866 costume: corset under close-fitting bodice with full sleeves and neat collar, and cage-crinoline skirt. Her feet are of course now modestly hidden! Has anyone else seen these photos?

[Jan65]

I saw a programme fairly recently about Arthur Munby - although I wouldn't have remembered his name - which was very interesting. I like the sound of the Michael Hiley book, I think I'll try to get hold of that. Thanks Penny!

[Davran]

[quote=Penny Gallo;219812]... who has a button box now? [quote]


I do! My mother's box was a source of endless play when I was a child and I still collect all those spare buttons they give you with clothes these days - no idea what for because I detest sewing on buttons. I love going to The Haberdashery Shop in Ramsgate, where they still sell loose buttons and have a fantastic variety.

Penny, your posts on this thread are most interesting. We have in our area a costume trust (can't remember exactly what it is called) and they sometimes have exhibitions at Goodnestone Park where Jane Austen used to visit. Fascinating stuff.

[Barnzzz]

My grandad used to have a brass box in which he kept his cuff links and my grandmother used to have a button box. I can remember playing with both when I was a child. I've got my own button collection now but I too, detest sewing them on !

There is a shoe museum near here in Street. I thought this sounded boring until I visited. It was really interesting. I was struck by how small people's shoes were 100 or so years ago. I wear a size 5 and they are like boats in comparison !

If you read the physical descriptions of the WW1 soldiers from their service or pension records its suprising how short and small they were. We are definately getting bigger as time passes.

Sue

[pottoka]

who has a button box now?


I have one, Penny, and very useful it is, too, for replacing all those buttons that are sewn on by a machine, left with the thread hanging ready to unravel and so drop off so easily.

[Penny Gallo]

Glad to hear so many button boxes still going! Do have a look through if you have an old one - with copy of a good Button Collecting Book in the other hand - you never know! Glass, pewter, enamel, steel, wood, early plastics (such as Bakelite, celluloid or cassein), papier mache, shell, fabric.... They can still tell a story: what uniform did that wartime metal brass button come off? That white-fabric-covered metal button off some long-discarded combinations looking a bit bent from the mangle? Anything written on the back of the buttons to say where they were manufactured? Do any match clothing in family photos?

What a thrill to be able to trace a family back to one of the women in Arthur Munby's photographs! Normally if we're lucky we get great grandparents in their Sunday best, but to see how an ancestor worked must be amazing, especially if it was an unusual trade! xxxx Penny