Mourning ensembles

Left: Deep mourning dress / Black silk crape-anglaise and chiffon / Circa 1900, USA / The Museum at FIT, 2007.23.1 / Museum purchase

Right: Mourning dress and hat / Black silk taffeta / 1870s, USA / Lent by Evan Michelson, Obscura Antiques
The Victorian cult of mourning used black to symbolize grief. Widows, in particular, were supposed to wear deep mourning for at least a year, after which gray and violet clothes could gradually be introduced. Unsentimental Victorians sometimes referred to the fashionable mourning dress of young widows as “the trap rebaited.”

Background: Mourning veil / Black cotton lace / 19th century, Brussels / Lent by Pat Kerr (Mrs. John Tigrett)