#1880s fashion

‘Blackbirds’, a group of men and women sitting in a fallen tree. Photograph by Louis Milton Thiers

A group of ladies walking in the park c.1885

Worth Gowns

I feel like every single dress historian has tackled the topic of Worth gowns at some point so let me be no different. I keep seeing so many people wanting to make one themselves and looking to find their Worth gown that I wondered, maybe I can do that too.

Obviously, I’m by far not as skilled as all of these other amazing, talented artists (I mean, just look at Cathy Hay recreating the Peacock Dress) but maybe once I’ve made some Victorian gowns I’ll get the hang of it and maybe, I’ll feel like I can do it.

But today I sat down and thought I could make it a mission to look at photos of as many Worth gowns as I could possibly find and maybe find one for a future project.

But first, if you’ve never heard of Charles Frederick Worth, he’s basically the father of haute couture and the first fashion designer in the modern sense. He founded the House of Worth which existed from 1858 up until 1956. Worth gowns have the name Worth stitched onto the inside of the waistband either like this

or like this

For now, I just looked through the collection of the Met Museum but there are still sooo many more gowns to find.

So now I would like to present to you some of my favorites and/or ones that I thought were particularly interesting.

First of all, we have this beautiful early 1860s lavender dress with two bodices, one for day wear and one for evening wear.

When I hear people talk about Worth gowns it’s mostly about 1880s or 90s dresses so when I found out that the House of Worth was already founded in 1958 I was very surprised because I didn’t actually know that. That’s why I wanted to include this dress, because early Worth gowns are not something that are mentioned a lot.

Next up there’s this seemingly ordinary dress.

It looks so ordinary I would’ve never guessed it was made by Worth! But then again, it’s a morning dress so it’s sort of understandable why it’s not as extravagant as the rest.

Then I stumbled across this interesting, very experimental-looking dress.

It’s almost as if an 18th century Polonaise and an 1880s dress had a baby.

Now, let’s get to my favorites! It’s really hard to decide which one’s the most beautiful one so I’m going to mention them in no particular order.

There’s this champagne-colored beauty with actual pearl tassles!

And once you take a closer look you’ll see that there’s pearl trimming around the neckline and it actually looks like pearl lace. Incredible.

Then there’s this gorgeous 1902 floral gown.

The way the flowers separate from the rest and are used as appliqué on the lace is just stunning.

Next up, we have this beauty.

I don’t really know what it is that I love about this gown, it’s everything. The way the colors aren’t the same but match perfectly, the gold patterns, the train…

And finally, we have… I think if I had to choose one this would be it, so maybe I did end up putting them in order of my preference. Oh well.

This is an 1882 evening dress, but I’m just gonna say… imagine this as your wedding dress. Not that I’d want to get married in it, but just… a hypothetical wedding with this hypothetical wedding dress, it’s giving me just enough fae vibe to feel like you’re in a Disney movie but not too much to make it too tacky.

So this concludes today’s search for The Perfect Worth Gown. If I had to recreate one, I’d probably choose the mermaid one, the green and blue one, just because I feel like that’s the most doable one of them. But ironically enough I picked almost only 1880s dresses, which is my least favorite Victorian fashion decade. Guess I might get myself a bustle after all to recreate a Worth gown.

Disclaimer: I will put no spoilers so you can still read if you haven’t seen the movie yet! This post is just me assessing the costumes and their historical accuracy.

First of all, since the movie came out I had already heard a lot about it in just those two days that I was very curious to see if it lived up to the hype and it truly did! It’s well-made with round characters and a gripping story line. But enough about the movie, let’s get on to the costumes.

The movie is set in 1884, and at first I thought she was born in 84 (because of the intro) so I did like a third of the movie thinking the costumes were outdated until I looked at a closeup of a newspaper and realized that it is set in 84, so yay for me. But anyways, here are the facts.

• Enola is 16 years old, therefore considered a child/young woman in society and would be wearing children’s clothing but we’ll get to that later
• There aren’t many examples of children’s clothing from that time so I’ll have to refer to the few fashion plates that I can find.

This blue dress from the beginning of the film has basically everything one would expect from the very end of the 19^th century, but not necessarily the 1880s. The loose front is a very end-of-the-century, more so even Edwardian thing, and from the fashion plates and magazines I could find it seems that children’s clothing was heavily inspired by adult fashion. It has a very low waistline and is overall very straight. Enola’s dress looks more 1900 except for the fitted sleeves which are accurate for the period. And the collar looks completely out of place. But, of course there’s always a but, this is just taking mainstream fashion into account. The Aesthetic Dress movement took place in the 1880s and the dresses would have looked somewhat similar to this one, with a loosely fitted front but they also had puffier sleeves, so it’s like they took some details from different movements and also took some inspiration from the Edwardians and put them all together in a dress.

Another thing I would like to add, (hence the advert - I had to make collages to fit 10 pictures in this post) I am not sure as it doesn’t fit her character at all but she looks corseted in those pictures (I added the first one specifically because I think you’re able to see the outline of a corset? Faintly?). Depending on your age and status and your parents’ plans for you (aka if they wanted you to get married at 16), teens of that age would either wear a corset or not. But taking Enola’s upbringing into account and it was rather uncommon for a 16 year old to be wearing a corset, not unseen but uncommon, I’d say that if the costume department decided to put Millie in a corset in that particular scene is historically inaccurate. There were corsets for young women/teens, but they didn’t give you that extreme hourglass shape, they were straighter and didn’t give you a tiny waist, like the bottom right one in this corset advert. Unfortunately, I could not find out when it’s from but it should be somewhat close to the 1880s.

Next up, I would like to say that the length of the skirt they chose for Millie to wear is appropriate for a 16 year old! Unlike what we saw on Anne with an E…

At one point we get a look at her undergarments and they’re looking fine for the time! The chemise and the drawers, she’s obviously not wearing any petticoats as she’s being measured but we saw a glimpse of a petticoat when she was riding a bike in an earlier scene so yes, this part is accurate.

Next up, I’d like to talk about this lady and her dress is just amazing, fashion plate worthy and absolutely accurate, I have nothing bad to say about this.

What I noticed overall in the movie was that the bustles weren’t as extreme as I would have expected them to be, but it all had to do with personal preference so it’s not necessarily historically inaccurate to see more lowkey bustles. But I didn’t see one bustle that was just crazy in today’s eyes so maybe they could have improved on that but I’m just nitpicking at this point. Or maybe I’ve just gotten so used to seeing old clothes that nothing shocks me anymore.

Here we can see some crinolines being sold and judging from their width they are somewhat outdated.

They could pass as maybe early 1870s if not even 1860s.

Now Enola wants to become a lady, so she has to wear adult clothes! Here, she goes into a shop and puts on her clothing. We can see here how poorly fitted the corset is; the lacing gap should be parallel but you can see in the mirror how it gets smaller towards the bottom. Maybe it was done unintentionally but maybe it’s just supposed to show that ready-to-wear corsets just weren’t made for the person buying them. But in that same scene, we finally get a proper bustle! That’s historical accuracy right there!

Next up is her iconic red gown.

Now… I had a little bit of trouble with that one. The skirt is a little wide in my eyes, but the overall shape and cut is fine, with that layer draping over her underskirt. However, her neckline is something you wouldn’t typically see. You see other characters wear high necklines, so I don’t know why they chose to give this dress almost an evening wear look. V-necks did exist in evening wear, but then again they would be paired with frilly short sleeves and not tight fitting day wear sleeves. So all in all, yes, the dress is accurate but the neckline is uncommon.

Next, we have what is probably the most accurate one of her costumes – the mourning gown.

It’s slimmer than the red one and there are so many examples of extant garments on google pictures that look so similar to hers that I’m just gonna say, excellent job!

Next is my favorite despite the neckline problem. She just looks so pretty in it!

The neckline isn’t as low as on the red one but still quite uncommon. Another detail you can see in the second picture is that she seems to be wearing a bum pad instead of a bustle, which I think is acceptable. It’s slim, it has a layer that drapes over the underskirt in the front, and even the sleeves are a little bit gathered at the top which was very common.

And lastly, we have this white dress where she goes back to the style she wore at the beginning of the movie.

And once again, just like I said in the beginning, this is not something you’d really see being worn in that time unless we’re talking about the Aesthetic Dress and now the sleeves aren’t as fitted so it makes sense for the movement, plus it’s kept very simple.

Overall you can say they did a fairly good job at making everything historically accurate but took some artistic liberties here and there, just like you would expect from a movie.

Velvet evening gown

1887, altered 1902

Boston Museum of Fine Arts

Silk brocade gown

1880s

Kerry Taylor Auctions

Mourning dress

1880s

Kerry Taylor Auctions

Reception dress

1886

Cincinnati Art Museum