Product Description

From the most popular French fashion magazines of the late 19th century—52 extremely rare plates depict the latest in chic apparel for the well-to-do, including elegant day dresses with leg-o’-mutton sleeves, fur-trimmed hunting outfits, ruffled dresses for a day at the seaside, elaborately ornamented costumes for theatrically inclined lades and children, lavish evening wear with plunging necklines, a parade of millinery styles and much more. A splendid archive, with captions, for use by theatre and motion picture designers, artists, fashion historians, and casual browsers.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #792333 in Books
• Published on: 1999-01-18
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 64 pages

Customer Reviews

Great Book
Full-Color Victorian Fashions is excellent. The book is exactly what I was looking for. There are a few pages of history, but mainly the book is pictures of victorian fashions. I have other books that deal with the in-depth history of fashion, but when you are wanting to "picture" what types of colors they might have used, the trims, etc. this book becomes very useful. In this case a picture is worth a thousand words.

excellent, but a bit spotty
This book contains a variety of rare hand-colored plates from French Victorian fashion magazines. The plates are glorious: they're full of detail and really give a good idea of what the clothes looked like, from fur-trimmed winter outfits to cool outfits for high summer, everyday walking dresses to evening and ball dresses, children's clothes, hats, and more. Most of the plates also have detailed descriptions, including the hats as well as the dresses. As a bonus some of the prints are oddly droll and amusing, such as a July 1887 print of seaside costumes depicting a little girl shoveling sand at the feet of one of the elegant ladies, who looks down tolerantly. Another rather startling print for fall 1891 hunting outfits depicts two ladies holding guns, with a dead pheasant, rabbit, and birds lying at their feet.
However, the book suffers from one unfortunate flaw: several years are missing entirely, including 1872, 1873, 1876, 1879-1881, 1883-1886, 1889, and 1890. The styles changed a lot between some of these years, too. It leaves the slim, just slightly bustled 1882 styles juxtaposed with the huge, jutting bustle of 1887, and the still-full bustle and plain sleeves of 1888 jump right to the bustle-less bell skirt and high gathered mutton sleeves of 1891. On the other hand, some years are given particular focus with several pages of plates, including 1870, 1871, 1878, 1887, and 1888.
If you want to learn about Victorian fashions in depth, this book would work best as a complement to a large black-and-white compilation such as Stella Blum's "Victorian Fashions from Harper's Bazaar".

marvelous resource for Victorian writers
What would romance writers do without Dover and their marvelous historical books? These books and even era paper dolls are inexpensive, and yet, thorough works that really can put you into the period. This book is stunning. Full color 9 ¼ x 12 ¼ inch plate rather than just a book, these are suitable for framing. Each drawing is two or three ladies in costumes, often with child/children in magnificent costumes of the Victoria era.

Done is seasonal wear, it covers everything from ball gowns to a stroll in the park. There is a corresponding section that has a details analysis of the clothing, item by item. It starts out going year by year, but then jumps a bit missing some. So while this is a super reference book, you really need Blum's Victorian Fashion from Harper's Bazaar 1867-1898 as well.

High recommended.