300 Years of Women's Fashion
For centuries women's clothing has exaggerated body shape to fashionable extremes. This collections shows body-shaping fashions from the eighteenth to the twentieth century, using objects from York Castle Museum's Costume and Textiles collection.
Georgian Stay Georgian Stay (1760-1780)York Castle Museum
Georgian Stay
1760-1780
Stiffened with whalebone, reeds or cord, stays gave women a fashionable formal body shape.
Tabs at the waist allow for movement.
Georgian Dress & Petticoat Georgian Dress & Petticoat (1770-1780)York Castle Museum
Georgian Dress & Petticoat
1770-1780
Women’s fashions were highly adjustable and could be loosened for pregnancy and other changes in shape.
Quilted petticoats added warmth and helped shape an outfit. They were also a sign of wealth. A petticoat like this would have taken many dozens of hours to sew.
Georgian Fashion Doll Georgian Fashion Doll (1750-1810)York Castle Museum
Georgian Fashion Doll
Before fashion magazines, fashions were communicated through fashion dolls. They were dressed in every layer of the latest fashions.
Fashion doll with removable wig and clothes. The doll is made of wood and painted in white European flesh tones. Joints articulate at the shoulders, elbows, hips and knees. The arms are wrapped with blue cloth seeves below the elbow, and the doll wears a chemise and petticoat in cotton woven to resemble quilting, a separate pocket hung from a belt at the waist, a gown in pink silk with pink lace overlay, and a pair of knitted white stockings.
The gown laces at the back, and has two lengths of woven pink silk with diamond-shaped pattern hanging from the shoulders. The wig is made of brown hair, and has a white lace and blue ribbon band and a matching choker. The doll has one blue silk garter.
Georgian Fashion Doll 180 degreesYork Castle Museum
Wealthy women would have their dressmaker copy the doll’s clothing in full scale.
Georgian Wedding DressYork Castle Museum
Georgian wedding dress
1775
At its most extreme eighteenth-century womenswear was the widest of any Western fashion. Stays shaped the torso while linen and cane or willow hoops supported the vast skirts.
A Perspective View of the inside of the Grand Assembly Room in Blake Street (1759) by William LindleyYork Castle Museum
A Perspective View of the inside of the Grand Assembly Room in Blake Street, York, England
1759
19th Century Silk Empire Line Dress 19th Century Silk Empire Line Dress (1820-1825)York Castle Museum
19th Century Silk Empire Line Dress
1820-1825
By 1800 women favoured softly shaped corsets and high-busted narrow gowns inspired by ancient Roman women’s clothing.
With dresses so light, dressmakers began to sew quilted bands to the hems to keep them from flying up in the wind.
Victorian Cotton Day Dress 45 degreesYork Castle Museum
Victorian Cotton Day Dress
1841
By the 1840s women's fashions again emphasised the waist. The shape was created with steel boned corsets.
Victorian Cotton Day Dress 180 degreesYork Castle Museum
Skirts were growing larger, supported by multiple petticoats stiffened with starch or horsehair. The petticoats were called crinolines.
Victorian Silk Day Dress Victorian Silk Day Dress (1857-1859)York Castle Museum
Victorian Silk Day Dress
1857-1859
In 1856 the first patent was taken out for a cage crinoline. This bell-shaped support was worn under a skirt to create a large full skirt. Skirts got larger, and many had a circumference of over 3m.
Victorian Corset (1860-1875)York Castle Museum
Victorian Corset
1860-1875
This corset had a 35 inch waist. Corset of black quilted satin lined with red and white striped cotton. There are gussets for the bust. The whole is part boned and stiffened by the quilting.
It has a steel split busk at the front, which makes it easier to put on and remove. There is a steel busk down the centre front. Fastens at the front with steel hoops and studs and laces down the back through metal eyelets. Decorated with black lace, white lace and purple stitching.
It is very lightly boned, and the shape mostly comes from cording. String is sewn into channels to strengthen a garment.
Victorian Bustle Victorian Bustle (1884-1888)York Castle Museum
Victorian Bustle
1884-1888
By the 1870s the weight of a skirt was gathered in drapes at the back and supported by a lobster-tail bustle. It was tied at the waist and worn behind the legs causing its wearer to walk slowly and carefully.
Victorian Corset (1895-1900)York Castle Museum
Victorian Corset
1895-1900
Steel boned corsets created a stiff and erect body. Not all women laced them tightly as this one.
Many people believed that corsets helped support a woman’s body, protect her reproductive organs, and keep her kidneys warm.
Silk Brocade Corset 45 degreesYork Castle Museum
Silk Brocade Corset
1900-1907
Corsets changed shape in the early twentieth century. At the time people thought that the new forward thrust of corsets was healthier, but it was actually more dangerous than corsets before.
Home made 20s Rayon Dress 315 degreesYork Castle Museum
Rayon dress
1926
The waist vanished from fashion in the 1920s. The page-boy look was in, with a dropped waist and very little structure.
This dress was home made. Sewing machines and commercial patterns made home dress making very popular.
50s DressYork Castle Museum
Dress
1958-1959
Curves returned after the end of the Second World War. Dior’s New Look inspired a fresh wave of curvaceous fashions, with large skirts and nipped-in waists.
Novelty prints were popular for adult’s as well as children’s clothing.
Victorian Silk Day Dress 180 degreesYork Castle Museum
Victorian silk day dress
1857-1859
Blue and white figured silk two piece day dress with lace trim on bodice.
Shaping the Body
York Castle Museum
Objects from York Castle Museums Costume & Textile Collection
Collections photography
Robert Wake, M Faye Prior, Martin Fell
Text
M Faye Prior, Alison Bodley
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