Clothes In The Victorian Era

One of the first things a sensible person does in the morning - or, whenever they wake up - is change out of whatever clothes they slept in, and dress themselves into the appropriate attire. Sometimes said attire is work clothes, and other times it is whatever the person chooses to dress themselves in. Women, though of course not all, seem to be more inclined to follow the latest trends (if and when they can) in an attempt to either please themselves or the rest of society. The same went for women long ago in the Victorian Era and, and though it does seem impossible next to today’s standards, were even more pressured to conform to a certain customary way of dressing.

The first thing a woman put on was a chemise. A chemise was most commonly

These were commonly homemade, and composed two separate knee length legs, joined together at the waist with a band. Though it added an extra layer, which one would think would add modesty, it was met with great hostility from the public and even some women themselves. People claimed it was an “assault on feminine virtue and respectability”, and was also a biblical injunction for women to wear men’s clothes and vice versa. There was also a logical side to the backlash, as they were a nuisance to use the bathroom in, especially under thick layers of petticoats and a skirt. Despite this, drawers slowly became acceptable thanks to the invention of the crinoline, the next

A feat like this could only be performed by having a high metabolism, wearing a series of smaller and smaller garments day and night, and eating a very regulated diet with tiny portions spread throughout the day. In other records, some “fashionable schools” only allowed their students corsets to be removed for an hour a week, and only when bathing. Girls would also compete for the smallest waist, even to the point of fainting and getting headaches from lack of food or too-tight lacing. To add to the horrors of corsets, especially ones tightly laced, those who wore corsets commonly had their shoulder blades drawn together by the tightness, which caused some great pain and discomfort. Despite the seemingly apparent atrocities of corsets, some girls and women never dreamed of living without them. Some accounts even say the experience of great pain for beauty gave them an unnatural “high”, and once they had a taste of it, they couldn’t stop. Luckily, only a very small portion of the population practiced tight-lacing. The waist of an average woman’s waist (one who did not practice tight-lacing) in the Victorian era was 19-27 inches, much bigger than the 13 inch waist found in the magazine article. Despite this, 19-27 inches is still a small waist; the average modern British woman’s waist measures 34 inches. This, along with other evidence from