1800 Fashion Trends and Styles of the 1800s itchy. Fashion has always been one of the major social, political and aesthetic discussions of our times. Each decade brings its own fashion statement, style and trends to the fore. We tend to compare fashion styles in terms of the new styles of the week and old fashions of the previous decades but with fashion as a medium of mass communication it is impossible to ever really tell if a trend is going to take hold or not.
Some of the oldest known fashion trends have been found on antique pieces of clothing like ladies’ dresses of the early eighteen hundreds. This includes the widely known Victorian dress of white cotton or linen, patterned skirts and of course the popular crinoline which became very popular amongst the fashionable middle-class during the Industrial Revolution, but this type of dress had existed for over a century before this. The antique patterns and colors of the dress lend it to the interpretation of the “vogue” of the time. The same fashion for ladies’ dresses, which were a staple of the average female wardrobe for over a century prior to the Industrial Revolution, was made popular by the style of dress worn by the fashionable minx due to their ability to perform the practical tasks that were important to working women of the day.
While all females in the early years of the century wore crinoline dresses to conceal their pregnancies, the concept of unfettered femininity began to fade as women began to seek out clothing that could be adaptable to all occasions and that could also be dressed up or down depending upon the occasion. The emphasis of dressmaking became more on making dresses fashionable and acceptable for all social situations rather than just being made for the purpose of passing from one season to the next. One of the trends that emerged was the rise of dresses designed with pleats to drape the figure better and as the pleats were often left unbuttoned to show off the collarbone, these dresses became quite fashionable. Another fashion was to use all different necklines for the same garment to give the illusion of movement and to create a much more individual look among the various members of a mixed society. These changes in fashion resulted in a new level of dressmaking that would last for decades rather than just a few months.