“Fashion is very important. It is life-enhancing and, like everything that gives pleasure, it is worth doing well.”

Vivienne Westwood

British Fashion Designer

Some of us may not pay much attention to what we wear, whilst others enjoy searching for new trends and the experience of shopping. One cannot help but think of the famous scene in the Devil Wears Prada (2006) film where the main character Miranda Priestly reminds us all that, as Vivienne Westwood points out, fashion is important for everyone as the styles and colours are filtered down from the catwalk to High Street stores. This goes to show that fashion is a part of our daily lives, and has changed significantly over time as historical events unfold and social values shift.

This first exhibition in our What We Wear series explores how fashions have evolved for British girls and young women through objects hand-picked from different museum collections. These help give us an insight into the lives of British girls and young women throughout history, and how society influenced fashion trends. We start by looking at the Elizabethan, Georgian, and Victorian periods where monarchs and a class-based social system reigned for all living in what would become Great Britain.

Elizabethan Girls' Fashion

Queen Elizabeth I ruled the British Empire from 1558 until her death in 1603. That time period is referred to as the “Elizabethan Era” and occurred during the English Renaissance period. At that time, there was not much of a concept of childhood. As such, a category of clothing specific to girl children did not exist. Infants were “swaddled” by immobilizing their limbs by tightly wrapping them in cloth bands. Clothing for toddlers and very young children had no gender distinction with both boys and girls wearing skirts and dresses. Then, by around age seven, boys would start wearing breeches and other masculine garments to signal their entry into manhood. Girls were thought to enter womanhood at around the same age. From that point on, a girl’s wardrobe was essentially a miniature version of their mother’s.

Clothing during this period was used by the ruling class to demonstrate wealth and status. Queen Elizabeth I herself used clothing and jewelry to send non-verbal messages of virginity, youth, power, and responsibility. The Sumptuary Laws further ensured that certain social classes could only wear specific colors. Purple, for instance, was reserved for only the highest individuals of society. However, utilising fashion in this way also meant getting dressed in the morning could take ruling class girls over two hours. Meanwhile, lower class girls (e.g. labourers and peasants) wore less restricting clothing so they could carry out their daily chores. They required more practical clothing made from cheaper fabric that could be mended when needed. This section looks at these fashions in more detail and highlights key objects that survive to this day.

Queen Elizabeth I’s Influence on Girls’ Fashion

Elizabeth I when a Princess, William Scrots, c.1546, Oil on panel, 108.5 x 81.8 cm | RCIN 404444, Royal Collection Trust.

Today, we would call Queen Elizabeth I a fashion icon. She reigned during the English Renaissance from 1558 to 1603: a period of great technological progress and prosperity. Elizabeth’s ever-changing fashions were reflective of such advancements, as well as many global influences. As the figurehead of England and recently annexed Wales, her image was widely proliferated throughout Elizabethan society through paintings, printed illustrations, and even currency.

Therefore, almost every girl would have been aware of the Queen’s appearance in some capacity. The British monarchy had for some time set the fashions, and it would continue to do so for centuries to come. Those in the position to copy the Queen did so to the best of their ability. This was the case for girls living under Elizabeth’s reign, and it was also true of Elizabeth during her own childhood.

Queen Elizabeth’s relationship with clothing as a young child reflected her uncertain status in the royal family. Elizabeth was born in 1533, the same year her mother (Anne Boleyn) was crowned queen consort. Anne Boleyn was the second of Henry VIII’s six wives and Elizabeth lived as a princess for the first few years of her life. In the spring of 1536, records reported that Elizabeth’s kirtles were made in fine, brightly-colored silk satins and velvets.

However, Anne Boleyn was executed later that year and Parliament declared Elizabeth an illegitimate child. The three-year-old girl lost her status as princess and the privileges that went along with it. This prompted her care-taker, Lady Margaret Bryan, to write a very concerned letter to Thomas Cromwell (who was the Lord Privy Seal) shortly afterwards. She explained that the little Elizabeth had no kirtle, petticoat, gown, sleeves, nor linen for smocks or kerchiefs. Yet, the future queen did not spend her childhood in desperation, as she received gifts from other royals like Katherine Howard and her half-sister Mary.

Teen Elizabeth

Catherine Parr, attributed to Master John, oil on panel, circa 1545, NPG 4451 © National Portrait Gallery, London.

As a teenager and adolescent, Elizabeth mostly followed the fashions of the day but preferred to dress conservatively. Contemporaries described young Elizabeth as a simple dresser. When she was sixteen years old, her tutor (Roger Ascham) described her dress as “elegant rather than showy.” Also, Lady Jane Grey’s tutor, later recalled a 1551 court visit in which Elizabeth was the only girl not to wear the latest hairstyle. We can’t be sure why this was, although it’s possible fashion was just not her interest at the time.

Nevertheless, a 1547 portrait of fourteen-year-old Elizabeth depicts her in an elaborate ensemble of fine fabrics and adornments (see Fig. 1). She would not have worn her everyday clothing for the portrait, but rather her most fashionable. The teenaged Elizabeth’s ensemble in the portrait is very similar to one worn by Queen Catherine Parr in a portrait circa 1543-1544 (Fig. 2). Their silhouettes are virtually identical, down to their hairstyle and jewelry. However, Lady Elizabeth would not have been permitted to wear the sumptuous furs and cloth of gold worn by the Queen.

After Elizabeth was crowned Queen in 1558, she swiftly gained a reputation as an extremely fashionable monarch. Her simple taste quickly disappeared as she came into her new role. A record from May of 1559 described Elizabeth as “dressed entirely in purple velvet, with so much gold and … many pearls and jewels” — clearly an extravagant ensemble fit for a Queen. Throughout her reign, court fashion was changing faster than ever before. The influences and origins of court fashion at this time were so numerous that many are impossible to trace. Returning travelers and foreign visitors would bring new styles from abroad, which were inevitably adapted into English court fashions.

Queen Elizabeth

The Hampden Portrait, Queen Elizabeth I (1533-1603), circa 1567, George Gower/Steven van der Meulen. oil on canvas, Private collection.

Elizabeth’s wardrobe inventories throughout the 1560s and 1570s included garments from Flanders, the Netherlands, Spain, Poland, Italy, and France. In fact, in 1564 Elizabeth bragged to Sir James Melville that she had clothes of “every sort” and wore her French and Italian ensembles to impress him. However, as an English and Protestant Queen, Elizabeth was very careful to cultivate an image of power, divinity, and patriotism. In her portraits, Elizabeth is frequently depicted wearing red, black, and white. Those colors were symbolic of her piety and famously unmarried ‘virgin’ status.

While Queen Elizabeth had many decisions to make about what to wear, getting dressed was much more straight-forward for noblewomen of her court, who desired to copy her. It was Queen Elizabeth who set the court fashions that would inevitably trickle down throughout the fashion system. Therefore, women needed to follow her sartorial lead in order to appear wealthy, powerful, and in-the-know.

Efforts to dress like Queen Elizabeth are obvious through portraiture. The desire to resemble the Queen also influenced beauty practices, and most notably, the fashionability of red hair. When Elizabeth took the throne, red hair was not viewed favorably as it was associated with barbarians and was disliked as a result. However, Elizabeth took pride in her red hair, which she inherited from her father King Henry VIII. To imitate her likeness, noblewomen would wear red wigs, or even attempt to lighten and dye their hair. That isn’t to say that countless noblewomen and courtiers were dressed exactly the same. There were many variations due to sumptuary laws, financial means, and personal taste.

The 1563 Hampden Portrait depicts Elizabeth in the most fashionable silhouette of the day. Her smock has a relatively small ruff collar and wrist cuffs. Necklaces are displayed through an open gap. Strands of jewels decorate the neckline, which is low-cut and rounded at the top, whilst her sleeves are slashed and puffed (a technique where the undergarment is pulled through decorative cuts in the outer-garment). Perhaps the most characteristic feature of this style is the padded shoulder rolls that top them.

Elizabethan Girls

Detail: William Brooke, 10th Lord Cobham and his Family, 1567, Master of the Countess of Warwick, oil on panel, Private Collection.

The styles of Elizabethan children’s clothing at this time were not distinct from those of adults. Girls as young as five years old wore silhouettes similar to Queen Elizabeth in their portraits. A family portrait of William Brooke (dating to around 1567) depicts five-year-old twin girls wearing simple, miniature variations of the ensemble.

Susan Bertie, later Countess of Kent, Master of the Countess of Warwick, 1567. Oil on panel, Beaney House of Art & Knowledge, Canterbury.

Another painting from the same year depicts thirteen-year-old Susan Bertie, the Countess of Kent, wearing an elaborate version of Queen Elizabeth’s dress in black and silver, including very similar slashed-and-puffed sleeves.

A Young Lady Aged 21, Possibly Helena Snakenborg, Later Marchioness of Northampton 1569, Unknown artist. © Tate London.

The style still prevailed in 1569 when it was depicted on twenty-one-year-old Helena Snakenborg, who (like the Queen) wore it in red, white, and gold. Elizabeth’s style may be best remembered for the grandiose fashions worn towards the end of her reign, like in the 1592 Ditchley Portrait. This extreme style was also copied by girls.

Barbara Gamage with six of her children, Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger, c1596, collection of Viscount de Lisle, Penshurst Place.

A 1596 painting shows Barbara Gamage, the Countess of Leicester, with her six young children. Two of her daughters appear as the spitting image of Queen Elizabeth and they wore very fashionable French farthingales, drum ruffles, trunk sleeves, stomachers, and open, lace ruffs.

Ellen Maurice, Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger,1597, Oil on oak. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Another portrait, of nineteen-year-old Ellen Maurice (dating to around 1597) is also remarkably similar. Their ensembles were all white with gold jewelry and long strands of pearls around their necks, displaying obvious influences from the Queen. However, none of Queen Elizabeth’s subjects could ever afford to achieve her level of sumptuousness and grandiosity.

Dress like You

Queen Elizabeth I (‘The Ditchley portrait’), c1592,Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger, oil on canvas, NPG 2561© National Portrait Gallery, London.

In conclusion, studying the dress of Queen Elizabeth I is integral for analyzing that worn was by Elizabethan girls. Noblewomen and their daughters were always interested in aligning their fashions with the Queen’s, regardless of personal taste. This was not a unique system of the Elizabethan era; it was also true of Elizabeth’s youth. Young Elizabeth was not a trend-setter and a portrait painted when she was fourteen years old shows her in an ensemble extremely similar to a more luxurious outfit worn several years earlier by Queen Catharine Parr.

What was unique to Elizabeth’s reign, however, was her unmarried status. This made her the one, true monarch. Also, fashion changed more quickly during Elizabeth’s reign and the evolutions and sometimes short lifespans of court fashions help art historians to date portraits. However, the clothing worn by Queen Elizabeth’s subjects could potentially be several years behind. Still, noblewomen and girls would have constantly done their best to be aligned with the Queen’s fashions, signaling their status over the working class. It’s the small differences between their dress and Queen Elizabeth’s that are more interesting. Through differences and variations we can start to imagine the girl’s individual taste, means, and personality.

Ruling Class Girls

Elizabethan court fashion served to artificially reshape the body for both men and women. The rapidly-changing fashionable silhouette was increasingly stiff and unnatural, emphasizing the wealth of the elites. For girls, that meant wearing a stiffened kirtle or boned “pair of bodies” (the predecessor of the corset) over her smock.

The artificial shape of her skirt was supported by a farthingale and padding worn over the hips. Gowns were made of many interchangeable pieces that typically included a bodice, triangular stomacher panel, large sleeves, and full skirts.

Important accessories for elite girls included expensive jewellry (such as pearls and coral beads), headwear, gloves, and exotic fans. On her legs she wore stockings, garters, and finely-crafted shoes. Last but not least, of course, was the iconic Elizabethan ruff.

The ruff was a stiffened collar worn by both women and men. Some ruffs and matching wrist-cuffs were included with intricate lace. These were handmade and extremely expensive. Large ruffs were very impractical accessories as they made it difficult to eat and lost their shape after only one wear. However, that is why the elite class wore them. They symbolized the wealth and power of the wearer.

Political alliances in the Renaissance were often formed via the arranged marriages of royal girls. Indeed, royal marriages with foreign princesses were one way that fashion from different countries spread through England. The farthingale, for example, came to the English court through Catherine of Aragon, a Spanish princess and first wife to Henry VIII (Queen Elizabeth I’s father).

Girls from noble families could afford to have their portraits painted, so these are the greatest surviving visual representations of Elizabethan girls. However, relative to the entire population, very few Elizabethan girls could participate in luxurious court fashions. The fashion worn by the highest social classes would influence the lowest, though some fashion trends worn by the elite (like large ruff collars) were either too impractical or too expensive to be worn by the working class.

Wealthy Non-nobility Girls

Could wealthy Elizabethan girls wear anything they wanted?

The Elizabethan Era was a time of growing economic opportunities and urban life led to increased social mobility. Merchants, exporters, and wholesale retailers could have very lucrative careers in cities like London and Bristol as a result. Wealthy businessmen would have desired to clothe their families in the most fashionable garments they would afford. They would have worn ruffs and attempted to mimic the latest court fashions however they could. However, that didn’t mean a merchant’s daughter could dress like a princess. A person’s clothing at this time was meant to indicate many of their personal qualities, including their social rank. That is one reason why Queen Elizabeth I issued many sumptuary laws throughout her reign.

Sumptuary laws specified exactly what types of clothing different ranks could wear, down to fabric type and color. For example, the color purple and cloth of gold was only to be worn by monarchs. Luxurious materials were mostly only to be worn by royals and the nobility. However, some exceptions were made for private citizens based on income or the amount of land they owned. Wives of men who made over £100 in a year were permitted to wear gowns made of satin or damask and fur from foreign lands. The punishment for breaking a sumptuary law was a hefty fine, but it seems the laws were broken with some frequency.

SUMPTUARY LAWS

These laws specified exactly what types of clothing different ranks could wear, down to fabric type and color. For example, the color purple and cloth of gold was only to be worn by monarchs. Luxurious materials were mostly only to be worn by royals and the nobility. However, some exceptions were made for private citizens based on income or the amount of land they owned. Wives of men who made over £100 in a year were permitted to wear gowns made of satin or damask and fur from foreign lands. The punishment for breaking a sumptuary law was a hefty fine, but it seems the laws were broken with some frequency.

Laborer and Peasant Girls

The vast majority of Elizabethans were low-income laborers and peasants, both urban and rural. Children were very important in these family units. Peasant girls would have been expected to help with household chores by the age six or seven and this often involved agricultural tasks and looking after their younger siblings.

As a result, the stiff, impractical fashionable garments of the nobility had no place in a peasant girl’s wardrobe. Not only could she not afford them – and nor was she legally allowed to wear them – but they would have hindered the movements necessary for her daily chores.

She would have worn a smock and kirtle (like the noble girl) made from a poorer fabric quality, and either a one-piece frock dress or a combination of a bodice and skirts. Additional elements included an apron, kerchief, and neckerchief.

She may have had a small ruff collar attached to her smock. To cover her head, she wore a close-fitting white linen cap called a coif. Clothing of the working classes would have been heavily mended and was likely to be made with repurposed or homespun fabric.

In the Elizabethan Era, it was common for girls to marry at age fifteen or sixteen. However, unlike Western brides today, her bridal dress was not usually white in colour. In fact, it would be centuries until the white wedding dress became a tradition among all social classes. It would also have been extremely impractical to only wear a dress once. Instead, a typical Elizabethan bride would have worn an ensemble of any color, and would wear it again on special occasions.

Unfortunately, there were a great number of Elizabethan girls living in poverty. Many were vagrants wandering from place to place and begging for a living. These girls relied on charity for their clothing and records published in Poor Relief in Elizabethan Ipswich by John Webb show disbursements from a charitable association that went towards clothing the poor. Some of the entries specified funds that went towards clothing poor children, including for coifs, shoes, and shirts.

Elizabethan Object Close-ups

Only a few objects survive from the Elizabethan era, but there are some hidden gems within museum collections. We’ve collected a handful of these to highlight key items of clothing (such as the shift undergarment) and fashions of the time. They also show the difference between the ruling- and lower-classes. Click on the object to enlarge it and find out more.

Impacts of Elizabethan Fashion

Through the clothes worn, we can see that Elizabethan society centered around a strict social hierarchical order. The Sumptuary Laws ensured clothes worn matched the social status (and identity) of the wearer by setting clear visual distinctions between social classes and dictated types of clothing, including color and fabric, and accessories worn. They restricted individual expression of identity, and instead, ruling class girls looked to copying the fashions worn by Queen Elizabeth I and the women closest to her in the Privy Chamber.

The influence of Queen Elizabeth I on ruling class fashion was highly significant and arguably set the scene for future monarchs, who would continue the idea cultivated by Queen Elizabeth I to use fashions to send non-verbal messages via the clothing they wore. In fact, we see this trend continue throughout history to the present day. The only difference being the fashions themselves.

Additionally, the Sumptuary Laws had an economic role to prevent wealthy families from buying clothing items from the European continent. These fashion trends become more popular and threatened to disrupt the established social order. Although, it could be argued these laws impacted fashion trends beyond 1601 when James VI of Scotland became King of England and Wales and repealed many of the Sumptrary Laws from 1604 onwards.

Georgian and Colonial Girls' Fashion

The Georgian period was a time of great change with advancements made in science, a booming economy following the start of an Industrial Revolution, and Parliamentary reform. These changes impacted the lives of many, and the great number of new ideas circulating society would inevitably impact fashion trends. This was the era of the mantua dress that was so wide, the wearer needed to walk sideways through a door. These took centre stage for the young women of noble and wealthy families appearing at court events, and what you wore could lead to a marriage that would help build vital networks and allegiances. Political and family loyalties could even be communicated through an outfit worn. Girls, meanwhile, wore less dramatic brocaded dresses made from expensive silk fabrics with floral and nature inspired motif designs that were usually fastened at the back. The dress may also have two long trains of matching fabric at the back to portray their young age. Yet, the key to any outfit was a stay bodice, which moulded to an individual’s body and created the iconic image of a small waist and larger hips.

At the start of the 18th century, Queen Anne ruled the separate kingdoms of England, Wales, and Scotland. These became known as “Great Britain” when the Act of Union was passed in 1707, which led to the creation of the United Kingdom. The “Georgian Era” began in 1714 after Queen Anne’s Rule ended. This section will explore the influence that the slave trade and fashion from other Western countries and Eastern countries had on British girl’s fashion throughout the 18th century. As well, the change in fashion during the second half of the century saw girls styling influencing womenswear for the first time and saw many women wearing the same style from birth to adulthood. As the British Empire found themselves possessing colonies in North America, South America, the Caribbean, and the Mid-Atlantic region, this article will also explore how British girl’s fashion transcended to North America with the Revolutionary War taking place towards the end of the century in 1776.

The “Age of Enlightenment” is the name given to a period of discovery and learning that flourished among Europeans and the Americas from around 1680 to 1829. During this period, Great Britain became a global power and grew wealthy. A significant part of that wealth came from Britain’s colonial empire and its active involvement in the transatlantic slave trade. The slave trade saw the use of new materials like cotton and silk in clothing items in Britain.

The late seventeenth century established Paris as the fashion capital of the Western world, which remained largely unchallenged until the twentieth century. Foreign visitors of the eighteenth century were constantly amazed by the local “mania” for new fashions- not only in the royal court but on the city streets as well. This era of colonialism and global trade saw a spike in the use of materials like cotton and silk from Eastern countries and an influence on fashion trends. This influence is seen in the image with the wearing of more traditional garments from India but also extended to jewelry, shoes, hats, textiles, paints, dyes, prints, and embroidery from Eastern countries like China and India. The Turban, similar to the one in the image, was introduced into English fashions in the 1790s and remained fashionable until the 1820s. Style inspiration came from England’s increased trade with India for cotton.

Despite the new opportunities in the fashion industry moving at an accelerated rate, due to the impractical cost of making new garments, even the wealthiest women were quick to re-trim their dresses rather than ordering new ones. As a result, the 18th century saw more alterations in trimmings (lace, ribbons, and ruffles) rather than silhouettes.

John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau are two men credited with starting the invention of children’s wear. They had new ideas about childhood and children’s education. For one, they believed freedom of movement was best for infants and young children.

As such, they advocated that loose-fitting clothing replace the more restrictive swaddles used previously. These clothes were usually gowns made out of linen or cotton with a fitted bodice and skirt that went past the baby’s feet. They also wore caps on their heads. Once babies began to walk and crawl, they wore more practical “short clothes.” These ensembles were composed of ankle-length skirts and stiffened back-opening bodices. These bodices may have also featured “leading strings,” which functioned like a lease for young children learning to walk.

Children of both genders wore skirts, but boys began dressing like adults before age seven. However, girls did not do the same. Girls remained wearing children’s wear for much longer. The bodices were closed at the back rather than the front, and it was also fashionable for older girls to wear white aprons pinned to their dresses.

The image showcases the use of silk and cotton, made popular by the slave trade, and the influence of Paris fashion in girls’ fashion, with the dress looking similar to something Marie Antoinette would have worn while also staying in line with what young girls often wore. This image also includes a lace cap, a back-opening bodice, a decorative and delicate apron, and the fabrics at the back leading bands to help her learn how to walk.

Girls began dressing like adult women after their early teen years. During this time, girls began to wear more foundation garments like stays, chemise, linen dress-like, and other undergarments that many women wore. The chemise (or “shift”) was a linen dress-like garment worn close to the skin, similar to the Elizabethan-Era smock. Stays were then worn on top of the chemise to shape the torso and were the foundation to the Elizabethan-era bond and later the Victorian-era closet. Stays provided structure for the bodice by shaping the torso like a cone.

By the 1790s, stays began to have bra-like cups for the breasts. Skirt supports were also necessary, although the shape of these changed much more over time with the chemise or stays. The image showcases a girl wearing a stay to help her achieve a more cone-shaped torso.

Throughout the 18th century, fashion changed rapidly with the rise of trade and slave labor, which provided new materials, trends, and fashion items. The second half of the eighteenth century saw what could be known as the first true fashion entirely unique for children. It was a white, ankle-length frock dress worn with a colored sash around the waist. The new style started in the 1760s and was worn only by very young girls. As time passed, the style became more fashionable for older girls. By the last decade of the century, this childrenswear style began influencing adults rather than reverse.

Fashionable young women of the 1790s wore an adapted version of the young girls’ ensemble. As such, fashionable British girls born in the late eighteenth century dressed nearly the same from birth to adulthood. This style was less structured and restrictive than previous fashions. Structured skirt supports like panniers were no longer necessary. While stays were still worn, they transitioned into having bra-like cups for the bust. This style is often associated with portraits of Jane Austen and other famous British girls and women from the latter half of the 18th century.

Girl’s Dress, c1780s, Artist/maker unknown, American. Printed cotton plain weave, white linen thread-covered buttons, white linen cording. Credit Line: Gift of Walter Schwartz, 1943. Philadelphia Museum of Art.

British Girls have always been a part of American history, starting with the eleven girls who came on the Mayflower in 1620. By the eighteenth century, the New England region experienced a significant boom in population and economy. Colonial girls were raised the same as British girls of this century, with working-class girls learning practical domestic skills and upper-class girls learning social etiquette rules. As a result, much of British fashion heavily influenced the fashion of colonial girls. However, one could expect to see affluence on parade in mid-eighteenth-century colonial cities — especially in fashion.

Similarly to British citizens, American colonists also looked to London and Paris for fashions. They could import international fashion news and fabrics through port cities like New York. Colonial tailors advertised that they made the “latest London fashions.” As such, fashionable American girls would have looked similar to those across the pond. The sharing of fashion news continued to be true even after the Revolutionary War. However, there was a delay in receiving the latest fashion updates due to the physical distance it had to travel.

Due to their lack of a court system and the import of relatively inexpensive items, fashion in colonial cities was possibly the most democratized in the Western World. In 1740, an Anglican preacher named George Whitefield remarked that people in Charleston, South Carolina, dressed more extravagantly than the gentry of the London court. Indeed, the increasing availability of previously inaccessible fashion items made it difficult to discern who belonged to what social class.

Georgian Object Close-ups

The collection of objects below reflect the changes of the Georgian period and show the simpler form of dresses worn by girls during the Georgian period. Take a moment to explore the patterns of some items, and the iconic stay bodice examples worn by girls from a young age. Click on the objects below to enlarge them and learn more.

Girl's pocket linen embroidered with yellow silk

Impacts of Georgian and Colonial Fashion

We can see from the clothes worn during the Georgian period that social, political, and cultural changes significantly impacted fashions of the time (particularly for noble and wealthy families looking to make their mark) and there are several key changes in dress silhouettes.

The restoration of the British monarchy in 1660 led to a return of previous social divides and the lavish clothing worn by wealthy families. An early form of the mantua appeared in the early Georgian era and later becomes the familiar small waist and ultra-wide hips we see during the mid-eighteenth century that could restrict the movements of wearer, depending on the skirt hoop size. These later dresses reveal the extravagance of the period and elaborate detail that openly displayed the wealth and power of the wearer and their family to everyone. The introduction of new, faster ways to travel and continuing expansion of the British Empire also brought new fabrics and design influences to Great Britain. Consequently, the popular fashions go through a further change as new painted and printed fabrics are imported from China and India.

Another change takes place towards the end of the eighteenth century when the simpler chemise dress becomes popular with girls and young women. This more informal, less structured look would dominate British fashion for many years and even influence later fashions of the period until skirts once more widened and hems became a little shorter to show footwear and even ankles.

Victorian Girls' Fashion

Queen Victoria’s reign (c.1837-1901) oversaw a period of significant technological progression and economic flourishment within Great Britain. The innovative developments sparked by the Industrial Revolution would not only come to impact British industries but fashion as well, with various dramatic fashion changes taking place every decade, an increased production of clothes, and greater public accessibility to sewing machines, fashion plates and paper patterns. Furthermore, the development of department stores allowed for easier consumption of ready-made garments and accessories compared to the custom-made fashionable pieces of the Georgian Era.

Portrait of Princess Victoria of Kent (later Queen Victoria, Empress of India) with her spaniel Dash, after George Hayter, 1833. Victoria noted the sittings for the original portrait, between 29 January and 22 March 1833, in her diary. Royal Collection RCIN 404118.

The 1830s saw heavy and stiff fabrics come back into style, with evening gowns having wide necklines and short puffed sleeves that reached the elbows from a dropped shoulder. These pieces were often accessorized with mid-length gloves. Queen Victoria ascended the throne in 1837. As Victoria was 18 years old, her youthfulness and love of fashion made her a trendsetter in the early half of her reign. The style of the latter half of the decade and into the 1840s became more subdued, similar to the evening dress pictured above of Victoria before she ascended the throne.

When she became Queen, she requested that her clothing, including everyone else in her court, be of British manufacture. Princess Alexandra would later stray from this, having popularized aspects of French fashion in the second half of the century.

Portrait of a Woman with Two Children in a Domestic Interior, Alfred Edward Chalon, c.1815-120. Oil on board. The Geffrye, Museum of the Home. Image credit: Museum of the Home.

In the 19th century, children’s fashion went back to resembling those of adults. No longer were the days of child’s fashion influencing adult fashion of the late 18th century. All children’s clothes were uncomfortable and fancy, for that was the style of Victorian-era Great Britain. You could tell a girl’s age based on her skirt length. Before they started school, girls would wear very frilly dresses. The frillier the dress, the richer the family. Once they started school, girls wore skirts that hit at the knee. At ten years old, the skirts dropped to about mid-calf. At sixteen, they went down to the ankles, and girls began dressing more like women with corsets underneath their clothes to achieve the bodies of adult women.

Similar to adult fashion, heavy materials in deep colors became more popular. The sturdier fabrics enabled sleeves to be of greater fullness, the start of the giant leg o’mutton sleeve to come. The giant sleeves helped balance the skirt widths supported by four or five corded and heavily starched petticoats. In the early 1840s, the bodice style was straight at the waistline. The latter half of the decade saw dresses for girls achieving more of a waist with a waisted separate bodice coat. It had a short peplum or basque with the newer bell sleeve that revealed a glimpse of the blouse under the sleeve. Fabrics like velvet trimmed with fur, taffeta, and glacé silk were popular choices for the wealthy.

Queen Victoria’s wedding dress, 1840, Mary Bettans, Jermyn Street, London, RCIN 71975, Royal Collection Trust His Majesty King Charles III 2022.

Although the fashion at the time was for Brussels lace, Queen Victoria commissioned Honiton lace for her wedding ensemble, reviving the flagging lace industry in Honiton, Devon. The lace flounce became one of her most treasured possessions; it was worn again at the weddings of her eldest child, Vicky, in 1858, and of her grandson, the future George V, in 1893. In further support of English industry, her dress was made of East London (Spitalfields) silk.

The desire to create a waist as small as possible saw the return of corsets and tightly laced bodices in fashion. Corsets were significantly impacted by technology in the 1840s when a new cut was introduced in France, one that created a more tailored fit to the waist. This new corset helped women move away from simple stays and made shoulder straps redundant as the bust could now be entirely supported by whalebone. Despite the health concerns raised against corsets and tightly laced bodices in the 1850s, corsets remained indispensable for most Victorian women. Further technological developments within the era would also see the introduction of the steam moulded and shaped busk corsets in the 1870s.

While corsets were worn to emphasise the slimness of waistlines, layered petticoats were first adopted in the late Georgian Era to create fuller skirts. As skirts became wider in the Victorian Era, petticoats were eventually replaced by crinolines which were cage-like structures initially made of horizontal whalebone hoops, and stiffened with horse hair in the 1840s.

Princess Helena and Princess Louise with Princesses Clotilde and Amélie of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Leonida Caldesi (photographer), 14 Apr 1859. Albumen print | 14.2 x 19.1 cm (image) | RCIN 2900171. Royal Collection Trust/© His Majesty King Charles III 2022. The dresses are excellent examples of girl’s bell sleeves.

Most children’s sleeves of 1855 were the new bell shape. Muffs and fur trims, tucks, and frills began to gain popularity. By the late decade, the girl’s crinoline was very large, even for small girls, and often had an extra bunched-up skirt. Easy cover-ups included hooded caps. Bodices frequently follow the Garibaldi fashion with a little bunching at the waist. Pantaloons went out of fashion, replaced with a small cage crinoline as the fashionable undergarment. Corded petticoats supported dresses, bunching up the skirt to show the soft bustle/polonaise elements.

In 1873, the mass invention of the sewing machine enabled garments to be decorated with extra frills, pleats, or other weight trimmings. By 1880, long cloaks were reduced to a short cap-like style and were of fur or tartan checks. Fur muffs were an essential accessory for the well-groomed child of this time. The tiny hats were saucier-sized and were perched atop the head until the mid-1870s when they began to get larger again. The sleeves remained straight but had large or deep cuffs heavily decorated with buttons and braids. A favorite dress form was the kilted skirt and hip-length bodice over-tied with a deep sash.

Portrait of Alexandra, Princess of Wales in bridal gown; full length, standing to right; wearing long veil and train, decorated with flowers in horizontal lines across dress; holding fan in hand. Chromolithograph. British Museum, London © The Trustees of the British Museum.

Crinolines were later made of steel rings in the 1850s that were fastened around the waist with bands, which made it possible to increase the size of skirts without having to use so many petticoats.

The late 1860s saw a gradual focus on the back of skirts, which was emphasised by the changing shape of crinolines that evolved to be flatter at the front and jut out more behind at the back.

The area where bustles would soon appear was also sometimes marked out by accessories like bows, and although the crinoline’s structure and shape changed according to the preferred dress shape, the basic cage remained in place for the 1850s and 1860s despite its impracticality. By the end of the 1860s, bustles would come to replace crinolines.

Maker unknown (English). Woman’s bustle, ca. 1885. Cotton twill, cotton-braid-covered steel, and cotton-braid cord; 78.74 cm (31, center back in). Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, M.2007.211.399.

The first bustle era in Victorian fashion began in 1870 where either cage bustles or bustle pads were worn to make dress skirts and trains fuller at the back. However, between 1876 and 1882, bustles completely disappeared in favour of slimmer figure-hugging silhouettes that removed all hoop skirts and padding but still focused on gathering material heavily to the back of skirts and trains.

This “natural form” trend was short-lived though and bustles returned in 1882 with “shelf” bustles making their debut. Compared to softer bustles, “shelf” bustles stuck out from women’s backs at a 90-degree angle, were less draped, more structured and rigid. Its impracticality partially fuelled national dress movements that advocated for “healthy” corsets and lighter undergarments that celebrated the natural body shape, but these movements were mainly limited to intelligentsia and “bohemian” circles. Young girls did not really wear bustles, although teens would have.

Plate 179, 1891-1892, Gift of Woodman Thompson, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. It was popular for families to not only order pieces from shops or dressmakers through the plates, but also their children’s clothes. This is an example of the coats and hats that women could purchase for themselves and their daughters that are all in a similar style.

In 1890, the bodice and overskirt were a single garment with a separate skirt worn beneath it. A small bustle pad support helped hold the back skirt shape, and the bodice neckline was higher than in the 1870s and often featured a small stand neck, sometimes frill trimmed. Drilling or pleating would continue onto other parts of the dress, especially on cuffs and large balloon heads with straight forearms. As the decade passed, a girl would wear the bodice more loosely with a bloused overhang. To create contrast, structured pleated skirts were a popular look with this loose top.

Skirt lengths fluctuated and the children’s bustle had disappeared, and high-waisted or high-yoked dresses became fashionable, worn with coats that included highwayman layers of shoulder-level capes. Smock styles set the next “smart” look and were made in often unsuitable fabrics (like velvet) in rich dark colors like bottle green, red, claret, black, and ultramarine blue.

Victorian Fashion Magazines and Catalogues

The first fashion plates were published in France in the late-17th century, eventually being made in London. Plates were often reproduced by several magazines and circulated internationally. The thriving business opened opportunities for women to have a career in magazine publishing, writing, and illustrating. The first fashion magazine did not appear until the 18th century. However, the imagery grew more detailed with models being shown in specific settings over the next hundred years. First there were mostly domestic scenes, but eventually they were featured in public places including department stores, parks, and street scenes. It was popular for families to not only order pieces from shops or dressmakers through the plates, but also their children’s clothes. Click on the images below to enlarge and see more details.

Victorian Object Close-ups

The collection of objects below reflect the iconic fashions of the Victorian era and show the bell-shaped skirts girls wore. These are almost identical to adult fashions of the time, except for the shorter dress length, and the small waist ideal is present throughout the period. Click on the objects below to enlarge them and learn more.

Impacts of Victorian Fashion

Similar to earlier periods in history, we can see that clothes worn by girls in the Victorian era mirrored the fashions of adults with some minor differences, such as shorter skirts that grew longer as the child got older. The iconic bell-shaped silhouette would later become part of adult fashion and young women wore a crinoline cage underneath their skirt and underclothes to make their waist appear smaller. Wearing this item of clothing meant that young women needed to learn how to walk (particularly through narrow spaces) and sit in the crinoline, which must be done without revealing the ankle or any petticoats underneath the skirt.

Another iconic silhouette we see during the Victorian period is the hourglass figure. The stay bodice made way for the corset as waistlines got smaller and the tightening technique made hips look fuller. Girls wore corsets from a young age and evidence is emerging to suggest they led to lasting effects on the wearers health, particularly the rib cage area and spine. Corsets would later be reformed to give the wearer more freedom when moving around and fashion ideals started to change. The bustle was introduced during the 1870s and eventually replaced the full crinoline cage of earlier times, as skirts became narrower and more practical.

The Victorian period also sees the British Empire at its height, and we see influences from overseas appear once more. As Japan was no longer isolated from the rest of the world, fabrics with prints of flowers, birds, dragonflies, and butterflies become fashionable to wear, and designers are inspired to create free flowing garments based on Japanese kimonos. The fan also makes an entrance as a popular accessory and could be elegantly designed. Yet, the death of Queen Victoria in 1901 coincided with a further shift in fashions, as society moved away from the restricted and structured silhouette of the Victorian period. Instead, skirts moved towards a looser fitting and more practical silhouettes start to emerge. The era that followed would continue this trend and see a dramatic change in fashions, as the world was dragged into a global war that would impact British fashion forever.

Educational Resources

Here is the What We Wear – Education Guide for this exhibition. There are classroom questions and activities for primary and secondary aged students.

This exhibition has taken many years to come to fruition. Interrupted by the global pandemic and staff changes, we are very excited to finally present it.

The curatorial team for this exhibition was Claire Amundson, Ashley E. Remer, Tia Shah, Summer Lee, Janice Yap, and Lindsay Guarnieri.

All photos in this exhibit are used under (1) Creative Commons licensing, (2) Fair Use terms of U.S. Copyright law, or (3) with the express permission of the author.

We acknowledge the institutions where the objects are housed: Victoria & Albert Museum, London Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Fashion Institute of Technology, and the Royal Collection Trust.

Images

The images used in the cut outs in the Elizabethan and Georgian sections are:

Unknown artist, Portrait of a Young Woman, 1567, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection.
Robert Peake, Princess Elizabeth (Elizabeth of Bohemia, the ‘Winter Queen’), Aged Seven, 1603. Royal Museums Greenwich.
Joachim Beuckelaer, Kitchen Interior, 1566. Louvre, Paris.
David Martin, Portrait of Dido Elizabeth Belle Lindsay and her cousin Lady Elizabeth Murray, c. 1778. Scone Palace, Perth.
Anton Raphael Mengs, Archduchess Maria Theresa of Austria, 1771, Museo del Prado, Madrid.
William Hogarth, The Graham Children, 1742. National Gallery, London.
Thomas Lawrence, Sarah Goodin Barrett Moulton: “Pinkie”, 1794. The Huntington, San Marino, CA.