Mourning ensembles
1800/1905
The Museum at FIT
New York City, United States
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)
- Title: Mourning ensembles
- Date Created: 1800/1905
- Location Created: USA, Belgium
- Type: Dress, hat, veil
- Rights: Copyright The Museum at FIT
- Medium: Silk crape-anglaise, chiffon, silk taffeta, cotton lace
- Credit: Left to Right: Museum purchase, lent by Evan Michelson, Obscura Antiques, lent by Pat Kerr (Mrs. John Tigrett)
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