Dress History Vol. 3: 19th Century

If you have been enjoying our ride throughout the centuries, you have yet another addition to look forward to. Ladies, we present to you the (not so ancient anymore) history of the dress vol.3: 19th Century style! 

If you thought that our fashion sense couldn't evolve much further than the taste we have for v-necks and tight silhouettes right now, you should definitely have a look at puffy Victorian sleeves because there is nothing else that screams "fashion" as much as a huge piece of fabric that you might as well rest your head on if you get too tired.

Puffy sleeves were everything. Quite literally so, because they made the attention focus on the behind of the ladies, which was also - you guessed it, puffed up. Every place that was of significance to show was accentuated.

But we are getting ahead of ourselves. In order for us not to undermine our next installment which will be all about the 20th century, let us stick to the lovely pre-Victorian dress era.

Silhouette framing became a huge thing then, because many ladies liked the oversized but still curvy look with an accent on the bust area, as well as the waist. Not so puffy after all, I'd say, especially when you accentuate the right areas.

In the later part of the 19th century, fashion icons of "back in the day" came up with a very defining feature of how we imagine the dresses to have been back then - the courset.  It was all about looking petite, elegant and wide at the hips, as this used to be a symbol for fertility. 

That very trend carried over to the early 20th century which we will tackle in our next post. 

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