Women's Dress 1780-1916

By katherineweaver

  • Fig 1. Formal Ball Gown (Robe Parée)

    Fig 1. Formal Ball Gown (Robe Parée)
    This Robe Parée was created by Marie-Jean-Henriette Bertin, for a noblewoman of the French Court at Versailles. Its luxurious design exemplifies the extravagance of women's Court dress within absolutist monarchies. For noblewomen (and men) dress was one method to display one's status and earn privileges from the monarch.

  • Fig 2. La Belle Assemblée Fashion Plate

    Fig 2. La Belle Assemblée Fashion Plate
    The two dresses in this fashion plate, created by British designer Madame Lancaster, are key examples of the Neoclassical style that began in the Directory period in France. This new, white, flowing silhouette was inspired by the Enlightenment, an admiration for Antiquity, and a desire to express the French Revolution values of equality and liberty in dress.

  • Fig 3. Italian Walking Dress

    Fig 3. Italian Walking Dress
    The Italian Walking Dress represents the second wave of industrialization in Europe. First, the dress itself is a ready-made product of late 19th C Italian manufacturing, as it is machine embroidered and stitched. Secondly, the "walking dress" style was a more functional form of dress that emerged due to the new bourgeois culture of leisure and outdoor recreation.

  • Fig 4. Elizabeth Handley-Seymour Dress

    Fig 4. Elizabeth Handley-Seymour Dress
    This fashion plate, created by Elizabeth Handley-Seymour, is an example of a popular style that was greatly influenced by the Great War. Its military-grey color and exterior pockets reminisce officers' uniforms. Further, the shortened skirt is influenced by how working-class women shortened their skirts at this time to aid them as they took on physical jobs in war production and agriculture.