1890s Evening Wear, Part 3

June 23, 2020May 5, 2023 / Adam Lid / Leave a comment

The high 1890s- that period from 1895 through 1896 when enormous gigot sleeves, acres of lace, and multi-gored skirts ruled the fashion world and evening wear was no exception. In this post, we continue our survey of 1890s evening wear with a focus on ballgowns in particular; also, as noted in the last post, in the mid 1890s, the gigot sleeves trend also affected evening wear but to not as great extent as was the case with day wear.

So, what was the mid-1890s ballgown like? Here’s a brief description from the September 14, 1895 edition of the Los Angeles Times:

To approach the new. ball dress from a technical standpoint is to talk at once of the cut or its skirt. ‘Tis sliced out of taffeta in two straight front and three wedge-shaped back pieces, for in these days of undivided skirt patterns all the fullness goes to the rear. Underneath it Is braced by a lining of stiffly starched muslin and inside up to the knees are mewed a great many overlapping flounces of silk muslin edged with lace or rows of little variegated palettes.

As was the case for daywear, the basic style centered around creating an “X” or hourglass silhouette through a combination of corsetry, gored skirts, and wedge-shaped tops. Gigot sleeves helped accentuate the top but they were used in varying amounts of fullness and in some instances were minimal such as with these examples:

Jeannie Paquin, Ballgown, c. 1895; Staatliche Museen Berlin (2003,KR 424 a-c)

Worth, Evening Dress, 1897; Peloponnesian Folklore Foundation via Europeana (2006.6.0416)

And now for some with more elaborate sleeve treatments:

Evening Dress, c. 1895; Metropolitan Museum of Art (1979.346.59a, b)

We would be inclined to say that the above dress is more of an evening dress than a ballgown but sometimes the dividing line can be fluid. And here’s a ballgown with a bit more sleeve:

Evening Gown Ball Gown Worth c. 1896 - 1897

Worth, Ballgown, c. 1896 – 1897; Galleria del Costume di Palazzo Pitti via Europeana Fashion

Doucet, Ballgown, 1897; Metropolitan Museum of Art (49.3.26a, b)

From most of the extant examples, it would appear that when it came to mid-1890s ballgowns, their design pretty much followed the general trends of the time with the exception that the sleeves which tended to not be as extreme as was found with daywear. On the other hand, evening gowns (a more general term for dresses that were worn for formal occasions other than balls) tended towards daywear in sleeve style. In the end, it’s logical that ballgowns would diverge some from sheer practicality:- ballgowns placed an emphasis on bare arms and a low cut bodice (a continuation of the earlier 1870s and 80s style), and gigot sleeves worked against this.

It’s easy to get lost in all the details and that especially with evening wear. In the next installment, we’ll delve more into the late 1890s. Stay tuned!

(To Be Continued…)

1890s Evening Wear, Part 2

June 22, 2020May 5, 2023 / Adam Lid / Leave a comment

John Lavery, “Miss Mary Burrell”, 1894 – 1895; Glasgow Museums (35.297)

And now we move on to the Mid 1890s when gigot (aka leg-of-mutton) sleeves began to come into its own as a major fashion trend. The gigot sleeve built on the “X” or wasp-waist dress silhouette that had slowly began to take hold in 1890 – 1891. As the decade progressed, the size of gigot sleeves increased to excessive proportions to the point of absurdity as satirized in this 1895 cartoon in Punch:

All joking aside, the gigot sleeve was a revival of an earlier style that was popular during the 1830s (yes, that which is old is new again! 😉 ) and as with its earlier incarnation, sleeve size ballooned to extreme size. Here are a couple views of the 1830s version:

Image result for 1830s gigot sleeve

Gigot sleeves could be quite large and complex to the point where special structures were needed to support them:

Pattern For A Gigot Sleeve

And now, we’ll see some examples as it applied to 1890s evening wear, first with a creation from Worth, circa 1895 – 1896:

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The dress is constructed from an ivory colored silk that’s better illustrated below.

Front

Rear

And for some detail:

Hem Detail

Sleeve Detail

Close-Up of Upper Bodice

Label

And for another example from 1894:

Evening Dress, 1894; Cincinnati Art Museum (1996.375a-e)

Evening Dress, c. Mid-1890s; National Museums of Northern Ireland

Evening Dress, c. 1895; Nordiska Museet

From the above, we have a good representative example Mid-1890s evening dresses. Now, it must be noted that while evening and day dress sleeve styles tended to mirror each other, it was not so strict when it came to ball gowns and in the next we’ll look at this phenomenon further.

(To be continued…)

1890s Evening Wear, Part 1

June 20, 2020May 5, 2023 / Adam Lid / Leave a comment

For a change of pace, we’re now going to take a look at 1890s evening wear. As with 1890s day wear, evening wear styles also were characterized by the “x” or “Wasp Waist” silhouette and, for a brief period during the Mid 1890s, the gigot or leg-of-mutton sleeves. Moreover, 1890s evening wear styles, the focus was more on the fashion fabric itself rather than the trim. At the opening of the decade, we see a continuation of later 1880s trends with the bustle size having dramatically shrunk to little more than a pad (if that). At the same time, the train still remained:

Revue de la Mode, February 15, 1890

From the above plate, we see both an over/underskirt combination as with the dress on the left and a solid one-piece skirt on the right. As the decade progressed, we would see a reduction in the train and a shift to a single gored skirt.

The Delineator, May 1891

L’Art et la Mode, 1891

L’Album des Modes, 1891

With the above three plates, not only do we seen skirts in transition, but also with the sleeves. Pure ballgowns still maintained a minimal strap-like appearance but for other formal wear styles, we begin to see more fuller sleeves, often extending to the mid-arm. However, things were still in a state of flux…

Here’s one example of a somewhat minimalist ball gown, c. 1892:

Evening Dress, c. 1892; Kent State University Museum (1983.001.0173)

Close-Up, Bodice

Close-Up Side Profile

Close-Up, Side Profile

Three-Quarter Front Profile

Rear View

With the above ball gown, the emphasis is definitely on the train which is made from a yellow silk satin with a metallic embroidered pattern. The skirt itself consists of an underskirt of yellow silk satin covered by a yellow chiffon overskirt. Interestingly enough, the bodice front and back are of two fabrics: on the back is a silk satin that matches the train and on the front made of the same yellow chiffon as the overskirt.

Finally, here’s one more example, this time an evening dress from circa 1890 – 1891:

Evening Dress, c. 1890 – 1891; Metropolitan Museum of Art

Side Profile

Three-Quarter Rear View

As with the first example, the emphasis is on the train; the entire dress and bodice is made from a yellow silk satin with an simple repeating embroidery pattern consisting of wavy lines. The sleeves are full, acting as a counterpoint for the train and are made from a burgundy/wine colored silk velvet. With the sleeves, one can see the beginning of what would later become the trend towards the massive gigot sleeve characteristic of the Mid-1890s.

(To be continued…)

1890s Day Wear, Part 4

June 19, 2020June 16, 2020 / Adam Lid / Leave a comment

In the past three posts on 1890s styles for day wear, we have shown quite a slew of pictures and commentary that seem to discuss the “X-Silhouettes,” “wasp-waists,” “Gigot/leg-of-mutton sleeves” ad nauseum. While this may seem somewhat pedantic, it is really aimed at defining what made the 1890s so different from the prior two decades in terms of styles. At the same time, style doesn’t exist in a vacuum but rather is a reflection of the greater society. In the case of the 1890s, it was a time of transformation for women and dramatic shifts were occurring in women’s roles and fashions and styles were quick to mirror these shifts.

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In this installment, we will be discussing this a little more while at the same time attempting to provide some of the technical basis for the styles themselves- in short, a look underneath the hood, so to say. 🙂 With that, let’s proceed…

Styles of the 1890s style, whether day or evening, were based on three elements:

Corsetry (to define shape)
Gigot Sleeves
Gored Skirts

Corsetry was the most important in that it defined most of the basic silhouette. During the 1890s, corsets tended to be longer with a more pronounced inward waist bend (i.e., wasp waist) although this is more of a general rule- much like today, there were exceptions in that there were a variety of corset styles to fit individuals with varying body types. The subject of corsetry can easily justify many posts in its own right so we’re not going to get too much into detail but suffice to say, the corset was the core of 1890s styles (and 1870s and 80s for that matter) upon which everything else was built.

Just to illustrate, below are a few examples of early 1890s corsets:

Corset, Maison Léoty, French. 1891; Metropolitan Museum of Art (C.I.45.27a, b). The hook located on just below the second button was designed to lock the front skirt in place and to prevent it from riding up. A loop would be installed in the inside front skirt which would lock into the hook.

Corset, Worcester Corset Company, American, c. 1893; Metropolitan Museum of Art (2009.300.3119a–c)

Side Profile

Corset, 1894; Metropolitan Museum of Art (C.I.57.51.1)

Front Close-Up

Rear View

As it can be seen from the above examples, the trend was towards lengthening the corset to cover the hips. Previously, corsets had tended to run shorter in order to accommodate the wearing of a bustle (i.e., “dress-improver”) but with its decline, there was no longer this need (plus the longer length helped to accentuate the wasp-waist look). In the example below, one can see the difference:

Corset, c. 1885 – 1887; Metropolitan Museum of Art (2009.300.3497a–c)

Side Profile

Besides corsetry, the gigot or leg-of-mutton sleeve further defined the basic early to mid-1890s style. Essentially, the gigot sleeve was a sleeve with an extreme excess of ease in the sleeve cap.

Le Moniteur de la Mode, September 1895

In the above fashion plate, one can see a somewhat extreme version of the gigot sleeve style. Fantastical? Here’s an image from circa 1895:

miss_annie_burbury_sydney_ca-_1895_-_photographer_freeman_and_co-_7779430200

Miss Annie Burbury, c. 1895, Sidney, Australia

And this day dress… 🙂

Day Dress, c. 1894 – 1896; FIDM Museum (S2006.870.22AB)

Close-Up Of Sleeve

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As can be seen from the above, gigot sleeves came in a variety of styles and could be very large, often using over a yard of fabric in their own right. So how were those large shapes maintained? Here were some of the methods:

Sleeve supports included wire frames, boned undersleeves, or interlinings of various stiff fabrics such as Fibre Chamois:

Image result for fibre chamois fabric

Finally, we turn to skirts, or more specifically A-line skirts. Compared to their predecessors of the 1870s and 80s, skirts of the 1890s were built on fairly simple lines, consisting of multiple gored panels arranged so that there was more fullness towards the rear.

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ladies_seven-gored_skirt_circa_1896

Image result for skirt construction 1890s

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From the above illustrations, one can see that skirts were just one unit, usually one color with minimal trim; the over and under-skirt combinations common to the 1870s and 80s had fallen out of use had for the most part been superseded although it still lingered on in some instances. Style-wise, times had moved on…

Now, earlier we mentioned that by the early 1890s, the bustle had disappeared and this is certainly true as far as the “cage” or “lobster” varieties. However, there was one exception and that was the bustle pad. Even though skirts were by no means trained to the same extent as before, there was still the need for a pad to help fill the gap at the base of the lower back (anatomically, the base of the lower back dips in slightly) and provide some support for the rear of the skirt. Also, many of these pads also covered the hips, providing further support for the skirt.

Bustle Pad, Horsehair (?), c. 1900; Metropolitan Museum of Art (C.I.45.48.6)

We freely admit that the above survey is somewhat repetitious of previous posts, but we wanted to clearly delineate what makes up the essence of 1890s “style.” Often times, people tend to consider the last three decades of the 19th Century as one continuous period for fashion and tend to get the various style elements confused. Each decade was fairly distinct and especially so with the 1890s. In any event, we hope you’ve enjoyed this excursion through Mid-1890s day wear and in future posts we’ll be taking the story further to the end of the decade.

1890s Day Wear, Part 3

June 18, 2020June 18, 2020 / Adam Lid / 2 Comments

By 1895, the 1890s “look” for day wear had fully defined itself. In contrast with the relatively static 1880s, styles gave emphasis to a more flowing silhouette that suggested mobility and constant movement. More significantly, in response to the rise of the “New Woman,” we begin to see a proliferation of day styles intended for various specific activities, many of them occurring outside of the home. One of the most profound fashion trends of the 1890s was the development of day wear that was suitable for the workplace. More and more women were taking up newly emerging opportunities to work outside the home and thus there was a need for practical day which was answered by the waist/jacket/skirt combination. Women were also now participating in sporting activities in increasingly numbers to include tennis and golf. And finally, one cannot overlook the radical (for the time) styles that emerged in response to the growth of bicycling- both for sport and as a practical method of transportation.

In terms of style elements, no matter the outfit was, they all tended to follow, more or less, the X-silhouette (or hourglass figure) characterized by a combination of the wasp-waist created by corsetry along with A-line skirts and bodices that widen out towards the top with large gigot sleeves. In short, big on the top and bottom and narrow in the middle.

The Ideal

Below are a few examples of the variety of day wear that was extant:

Day Dress, c. 1895; Daughters of the American Revolution Collection

In the above picture we see an extremely LARGE set of gigot sleeves, each one almost as large as the bodice front. While the waist is not a severe wasp-shape, it still is structured and defined by the corset underneath and as such, measures 21 1/2 inches. The skirt has clean lines, simply flaring outwards and the bodice features a front with shirring. The basic fashion fabric is a wool tweed combined with shirred silk crepe and velvet trim.

Below is another example only this time, the bodice is a solid piece that matches the rest of the dress:

Day Dress, c. 1895; August Auctions

Close-Up Of Front

Upper Bodice And Collar

Side Profile

Rear View

Close-Up Of The Rear

Once again, a basic day dress style only with the bodice being completely made of the same fabric as the skirt. The striped cotton fabric makes for an interesting visual effect combined with the collar, cuffs, and waist belt in a black velvet.

Walking Suit

However, this was not the entire picture…with the New Woman going off to work outside of the house, there was a need for more practical day wear and this was reflected in such styles as the “walking suit” or “tailormades”:

Walking Suit, Jacques Doucet, 1895; Victoria & Albert Museum (T.15&A-1979)

Three-Quarters Front View

Rear View

Three-Quarters Rear View

Three-Quarters Front View

Waking Suit, 1892; Metropolitan Museum of Art (1982.82.6a, b)

Side Profile

Rear View

For the top, women’s suits either consisted of a separate jacket and waist or a a faux waist/jacket that were actually one unit. This idea can be seen first seen during the 1880s but it wasn’t until the 1890s that one sees this style pushed further as can be seen with this example:

Walking Suit, 1892; Metropolitan Museum of Art (C.I.53.72.9a–c)

Front Close-Up

Side Profile

Rear View

The lines on this suit are very clean and the overall effect is very plain except for the soutache on the front and back of the jacket and cuffs as well as running all the way around the skirt hem. The jacket is cut so that it’s mostly open with wide lapels accentuating the top along with the puffed sleeves- the sleeves are relatively undeveloped but this example was made in 1892 before the gigot sleeve trend had set in. What is especially striking about this example is that one can also view the waist separately from the suit:

The Waist- Front View

The Waist- Rear View

Finally, we come to the most extreme example of the women’s suit: the bicycling suit:

Cycling Suit, 1896; Metropolitan Museum of Art (2009.300.547a, b)

Rear View

Skirt Top Detail

Cycling Suit, c. 1896; Philadelphia Museum of Art (1980-110-1a–d)

This is a relatively tame example of the cycling suit in that while the skirt was shorter (essential for clearing the bike chain while riding), it was still a skirt. Later, this style would also feature bloomers, an even more practical garment for riding. Below are some more examples:

C. 1897- The individual in the picture does not appear to be happy.

Besides “suits”, bicycling clothes could also consist of separate skirts and jackets or simply waists and skirts.

The Delineator, September 1896

Black broadcloth cape and bicycling outfit in 'The Ladies Home Journal', March 1896.:

The same basic outfit worn for bicycling was also practical for other activities such as golf:

Vasser Students Playing Golf, c. 1895

Besides suits, skirts, and jackets, sporting activities also had an effect on other items of women’s clothing such as sweaters:

Women’s College Sweater, c. 1895; DAR Collection

Women’s Sweater, c. 1895; Metropolitan Museum of Art (2009.300.1111)

Yes, you see that right- sweaters with gigot sleeves! In some circles, this would be considered scandalous- no bodice whatsoever. 🙂 And of course, the logical combination was for the sweater to be worn with a skirt…

Sweater & Skirt Combination; Metropolitan Museum of Art

In terms of fashion, the 1890s spawned a wide variety of styles intended for various activities outside the traditional home and while this may seem somewhat tame by today’s standards, it marked the beginning of a major shift in the roles of women in society and we begin to see an increasing number of women pursuing public life, whether through desire , necessity, or a combination of both and it’s a process that’s still playing itself out to this day.

In future installments, we’ll be taking a closer look at day styles of the mid to later 1890s where we see the gigot sleeve grow to sometimes absurd proportions and the subsequent reaction. Stay tuned! 🙂

Lily Absinthe

Gowns & Corsetry

Author: Adam Lid

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