Victorian fashion facts for kids
Victorian fashion describes the clothing styles and trends popular in the United Kingdom and the British Empire. This period, known as the Victorian era, lasted from the 1830s to the early 1900s. During these years, fashion changed a lot, affecting not just clothes but also art and literature.
In the early Victorian years, women's dresses were simple and often light-colored. Being modest was very important. This meant dresses usually covered the arms and went all the way down to the ankles.
By 1907, many clothes were made in factories. You could buy them in big department stores that had set prices. People still sewed clothes at home or had them custom-made, but this was becoming less common. New machines and materials changed how clothes were made.
Victorian Fashion: A Look Back
How Clothes Were Made
The sewing machine was invented in the middle of the Victorian era. This machine made it much easier to sew clothes at home. It also made it simple to add fancy decorations that would have been very expensive to do by hand.
Machines also made lace for a lot less money than old hand-made lace. Inventors also created new, bright dyes, like mauveine. These new dyes were much cheaper than the older dyes made from plants or animals.
Images for kids
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1844 fashion plate showing fashionable clothing for men and women, including a glove and bonnets
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Picture of 1850s evening dress with a bertha neckline
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Engageants
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This dress features a low waistline, and the bodice is worn over the hips to further emphasise the silhouette
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This evening dress features low straight necklines at the shoulder, bodices ending at the natural waistline and converging to a point at the front, and sleeves flaring out from the elbow. Organ pleats were used to further create the fullness of the skirts.
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Necklines plunged further, needing a chemisette to be worn underneath. Sleeves widened at the elbow, while bodices ended at the natural waistline. Skirts widened and were further emphasised by the addition of flounces.
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1st patented cage crinoline.Fullness of the skirt is even further emphasised.
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Emphasis has moved to the back, in order to create a Train.
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Bodices ended at the natural waistline. Wide pagoda sleeves are in fashion, and skirts are longer at the back; depicting a train.
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Dresses featuring the Bustle & Polonaise
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1870s tournure
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A Victorian dandy pictured in the 1840s
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Emma Hill by Ford Madox Brown (1853), a woman wearing a later version of the poke bonnet
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Drawing of Victorian men 1870s
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Victoria's five daughters (Alice, Helena, Beatrice, Victoria and Louise), photographed wearing mourning black beneath a bust of their late father, Prince Albert (1862)
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"The proper length for little girls' skirts at various ages", from Harper's Bazaar, showing a 1900 idea of how the hemline should descend towards the ankle as a girl got older
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Victorian interior: Hide and Seek by James Tissot, c. 1877
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Dress designed by Charles Frederick Worth for Elisabeth of Austria painted by Franz Xaver Winterhalter.
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William Powell Frith's painting of 1883 contrasts women's Aesthetic dress (left and right) with fashionable attire (center).
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Day dress, c. 1875 James Tissot painting.
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Whistler's Portrait of Lady Meux, 1882
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Renoir's portrait of Jeanne Samary in an evening gown, 1878
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Portrait by Alexander Melville of Queen Victoria, 1845
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An artistic interior: Dante Gabriel Rossetti reading to Theodore Watts-Dunton in the drawing room at No. 16 Cheyne Walk, 1882
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Men's swimwear: Cartoon from Punch by George du Maurier
