Fashioning the Victorians: A Critical Sourcebook (Dress, Body, Culture)

"Offering a unique anthology of primary texts, this sourcebook opens a window on the writing that shaped and mirrored Victorian fashion, taking us from corsets to crinolines, dandies to decadent 'New Women'. A user-friendly collection that provides a solid grounding in the fashion history of the nineteenth century, it brings together for the first time sources that trace the evolution of dress and the social, cultural and political discourses that influenced it. Featuring seminal writings by authors and commentators such as Oscar Wilde, Thorstein Veblen and Sarah Stickney Ellis, plus satirical cartoons, illustrations and fashion plates from key sources such as Punch magazine, it combines primary texts and illustrations with accessible explanatory notes to offer a wide-ranging overview of the period for both students and researchers. Each section opens with an introduction that examines the major trends in Victorian clothing - and the material, economic, scientific and cultural forces driving those trends - situating the texts in the pressing social anxieties and pleasures of the time. Exploring both menswear and womenswear, and key topics such as corsetry, dress reform and mourning, Mitchell extends her analysis into interdisciplinary fields including gender studies and literature, and guides the reader with a timeline, glossary and further readings."--Bloomsbury Publishing. Cover 1 Contents 8 List of Figures 10 Acknowledgements 15 Note on the Text 16 Timeline 17 Introduction 20 SECTION ONE Fashion Theory in the Nineteenth Century 46 1 Thomas Carlyle, from Sartor Resartus 48 2 Sarah Stickney Ellis, from ‘Dress and Manners’ in The Women of England, Their Social Duties, and Domestic Habits 56 3 George H. Darwin, ‘Development in Dress’, Macmillan’s Magazine 62 4 Thorstein Veblen, ‘The Economic Theory of Woman’s Dress’, Popular Science Monthly 72 SECTION TWO Dress Reform 80 5 Eliza Lynn Linton, ‘The Girl of the Period’, Saturday Review 84 6 Mary Eliza Haweis, ‘Beauty in Dress’ and ‘Taste in Dress’ in The Art of Dress 90 7 Florence Pomeroy, Viscountess Harberton, ‘Rational Dress Reform’, Macmillan’s Magazine 96 8 Oscar Wilde, ‘The Philosophy of Dress’, New York Daily Tribune 104 SECTION THREE Crinolines and Corsets 112 9 ‘Crinoline’, from Illustrated News of the World 118 10 Harriet Martineau [From the Mountain], ‘A New Kind of Wilful Murder’, Once a Week 122 11 Violet Greville, ‘Victims of Vanity’, The National Review 130 12 Contemporary Reports of Crinoline and Corsets 138 SECTION FOUR Men’s Dress 142 13 ‘Dress, Dandies, Fashion, &c.’, Fraser’s Magazine 148 14 ‘Modern Beau Brummellism’, London Society 154 15 W. S. Gilbert, ‘When I first put this uniform on’, from Patience; or, Bunthorne’s Bride! 160 SECTION FIVE Occasional Dress: Wedding, Mourning, Children’s and Fancy Dress 164 16 Contemporary Accounts of Victorian Weddings 174 17 Richard Davey, from A History of Mourning 182 18 Ardern Holt, from Fancy Dresses Described: Or, What to Wear at Fancy Dress Balls 186 19 ‘Children’s Dress’, Bradford Daily Telegraph 192 SECTION SIX Production and Industry 196 20 [George Dodd] ‘Wallotty Trot’, Household Words 202 21 ‘How we get Mauve and Tyrian Purple’, Chambers’s Journal 212 22 ‘Progress of the Sewing-Machine’, Bow Bells 218 SECTION SEVEN International Influences and Echoes 222 23 [Myra], ‘The Latest from Paris’, Myra’s Journal of Dress and Fashion 228 24 ‘Death of the Chief Ruler of the Fashionable World’, The Ladies’ Treasury 232 25 ‘A Japanese Village in London’, The Ladies’ Treasury 234 SECTION EIGHT Coda: Reflecting on the Victorians 240 26 Virginia Woolf, ‘Modes and Manners of the Nineteenth Century’, Times Literary Supplement 242 Glossary 246 Further Reading 253 Index 259 La 4e de couverture indique: "Offering a unique anthology of primary texts, this sourcebook opens a window on the writing that shaped and mirrored Victorian fashion, taking us from corsets to crinolines, dandies to decadent 'New Women'. A user-friendly collection that provides a solid grounding in the fashion history of the nineteenth century, it brings together for the first time sources that trace the evolution of dress and the social, cultural and political discourses that influenced it. Featuring seminal writings by authors and commentators such as Oscar Wilde, Thorstein Veblen and Sarah Stickney Ellis, plus satirical cartoons, illustrations and fashion plates from key sources such as Punch magazine, it combines primary texts and illustrations with accessible explanatory notes to offer a wide-ranging overview of the period for both students and researchers. Each section opens with an introduction that examines the major trends in Victorian clothing - and the material, economic, scientific and cultural forces driving those trends - situating the texts in the pressing social anxieties and pleasures of the time. Exploring both menswear and womenswear, and key topics such as corsetry, dress reform and mourning, Mitchell extends her analysis into interdisciplinary fields including gender studies and literature, and guides the reader with a timeline, glossary and further readings."