Historic Costume Preservation Workshop

March 1, 2010

3 Responses to “Video of blue floral bodice with bustle”

1.   %s Says:'), get_comment_author_link()) ?>
   March 2nd, 2010 at 12:43 am

   I did a little bit of research to back up our claim that this piece is childrenswear.

   First I found an 1881 fashion plate of childrenswear that has some similar feature– the dropped waists, the bustling (especially on the blue dress to the left), and the solid colored bands on the patterned dress, as on the red ensemble in this plate.

   I also found a brief description of 1880s girls’ clothing that seems to fairly accurately describe this piece.

   “The overskirt of most of these dresses was made in one with the bodice. Then a separate skirt was worn beneath that. A small bustle pad support helped hold the back skirt shape.
   The bodice neckline was higher than in the 1870s and often featured a small stand neck… Mostly sleeves were straight and slim”

   Finally, I found this excerpt from The London and Paris Ladies’ Magazine of Fashion, March 1879 in Janet Arnold’s Patterns of Fashion 2:

   “Standard patterns cut for 34 ½ inch bust and 24 inch waist; “If a lady has not a body pattern of her own size, she measures ranging from 31 ½”” to 42 ½”, that is to say, from the most petite lady to the lady of fine figure.”

   If a fashion magazine from the period refers to a 31 1/2″ bust as belonging to “the most petite lady,” then I think it is safe to say that a 27″ bust– 4 1/2″ smaller than that– could not have been an adult’s.

   So I feel confident in classifying this garment as childrenswear.

2.   %s Says:'), get_comment_author_link()) ?>
   March 2nd, 2010 at 12:44 am

   Oops, I think the blog ate the citation for the excerpt of 1880s girls’ clothing. It came from http://www.fashion-era.com/Childrens_clothes/1880_1890_girls_costume_pictures.htm

3.   %s Says:'), get_comment_author_link()) ?>
   March 2nd, 2010 at 9:16 am

   Very cool! I’m so excited that we have such a beautiful example of children’s wear from this period. It certainly wasn’t unusual for even children to wear corsets during this period, however. Valerie Steele’s book “The Corset: A Cultural History” states that even into the 1880s, “little girls continued to be put into corsets,although they now wore special models designed for immature bodies, rather than the miniature adult stays typical of the eighteenth century” (Steele, 49). This would also support your assertion that this is child’s wear because the silhouettes of adult women and children were now differentiated, even if both were corseted.

   In fact children, beginning even back in the 16th century, were corseted to help them grow up “with straight body and limbs” (a 16th century text on women’s childbirth, as quoted by Steele, 12), but this trend was changing to a less-intense version for children by the end of the 18th century, only to return later in the Victorian period (Steele, 29).

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