So I’m going to start by giving you a bit of background information about life for women in the 1890’s. Feminists during this time had had enough of girls not having the same education as boys and the demanded that they did; however this was very difficult as it was very rare to find a school that had a good academic system for young women so most were still learning domestic responsibilities at home. And getting into universities was even harder, in fact the first females only university was set up in 1870 and it was called Girton College, but unfortunately it wasn’t recognised by university authorities. So you can imagine, it was hard for women to actually get jobs and women in the upper and middle class, even the notion of them having jobs was unthinkable! Every woman was expected to get married and have children and if they wanted to get a divorce, they couldn’t get it! Only men could get a divorce, and so women tried to look their best so that their husband wouldn’t be unfaithful and then they would want a divorce.
So firstly fashion, as makeup was unacceptable during the 1890’s, just a smidge of colour on your lips and you were considered a tart, the women focused on fashion. This particular time is called The Belle Époque which means the beautiful era, however despite how beautiful and clean the fashion was, it was quite like a prison if you think about it, they had those really tight corsets and massive bustles were really heavy and was like an amour almost and one thing that I think is absolutely torturous for women of this era was the glove
powder which you would use to put inside your gloves as they were too small and too tight to just put on and you would open them with a glove opener and put them on which is actually quite a painful routine really! There were morning dresses and evening dresses and sportswear; morning dresses had developed humungous leg of mutton sleeves, and so with these tight waists and big hips and big shoulders in gave an exaggerated hourglass figure, which husbands loved. And this image was developed from Charles Gibson, an American artist, his drawing of what he called ‘The New Woman’ or ‘The Gibson Girl’ who was competitive and sporty but also very beautiful. The actually evening dresses were absolutely stunning, they were made from silks and velvets and some of the evening dresses had trains however this wasn’t practical because the women were supposed to be dancing but it would have been impossible with their dance partner forever stepping on their trains. So instead, women would decorate their dresses with beads and coloured ribbons to make up for the train. The shoes were little heeled slippers and the colour of them would compliment the gown and they would be very comfortable and perfect for dancing, so they had this painful gown on which made them faint all the time and it was hard to breath and the one your feet were these lovely little shoes, which were very comfortable. 
Now moving on to hair, because women couldn’t put makeup on their face they decided, ‘right then, we are going to do loads of stuff to our hair!’ and so they put in extensions, creating the beautiful ringlets that complimented pale complexions but then the Gibson Girl came out which changed fashion to what it was and so the tight curls were brushed out into smooth hair and then put in a chignon which would sit neatly under a hat. So now, it was no longer the hair that was extravagant, it was the hats; which included flowers, feathers, ribbons and velvets on the hats.
I think that the 1890’s fashion has influenced today’s idea of fashion quite a lot when it comes to maxi skirts or blouses as they were the most worn clothing in the 1890’s and so they have stayed versatile and popular today. For more inspiration, I suggest you watch Belle Ami or Sherlock Holmes (2009). Thank you so much for reading, I hope you enjoyed all the pictures and your new found knowledge, next month I will be writing about the 1900’s.
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