1830s in fashion

1830s fashion in European and European-influenced clothing is characterized by an emphasis on breadth, initially at the shoulder and later in the hips, in contrast to the narrower silhouettes that had predominated between 1800 and the 1820s. Women's costume featured larger sleeves than were worn in any period before or since, which were accompanied by elaborate hairstyles and large hats. The final months of the 1830s saw the proliferation of a revolutionary new technology—photography. Hence, the infant industry of photographic portraiture preserved for history a few rare, but invaluable, first images of human beings—and therefore also preserved our earliest, live peek into "fashion in action"—and its impact on everyday life and society as a whole. The prevalent trend of Romanticism from the 1820s through the mid-1840s, with its emphasis on strong emotion as a source of aesthetic experience and its recognition of the picturesque, was reflected in fashion as in other arts. Items of historical dress including neck ruffs, ferronieres (jeweled headbands worn across the forehead), and sleeves based on styles of earlier periods were popular.[2] Innovations in roller printing on textiles introduced new dress fabrics. Rich colors such as the Turkey red of the 1820s were still found,[3] but delicate floral prints on light backgrounds were increasingly popular. More precise printing eliminated the need for dark outlines on printed designs, and new green dyes appeared in patterns of grasses, ferns, and unusual florals. Combinations of florals and stripes were fashionable.[4] Overall, both men's and women's fashion showed width at the shoulder above a tiny waist. Men's coats were padded in the shoulders and across the chest, while women's shoulders sloped to huge sleeves. [edit]Women's fashions 1833 Fashion Plate: evening gown (left) and two morning dresses. The lady on the right wears a fichu-pelerine. By the later 1830s, fullness was moving from the upper to the lower sleeves. This morning dress of 1836–40 features shirring on the fitted upper sleeves; Victoria and Albert Museum. This portrait shows the pleated panels of fabric that trim the gown around the bust and shoulders, and the method of gathering fullness in the large sleeves. 1832. [edit]Overview In the 830s, fashionable women's clothing styles had distinctive large "leg of mutton" or "gigot" sleeves, above large full conical skirts, ideally with a narrow, low waist between (achieved through corseting).[5] The bulkiness of women's garments both above and below the waist was intended to make the waist look smaller than it was — this was the final repudiation of any last lingering aesthetic influences of the Empire silhouette of ca. 1795–1825. Heavy stiff fabrics such as brocades came back into style, and many 18th-century gowns were brought down from attics and cut up into new garments. The combination of sloping shoulders and sleeves which were very large over most of the arm (but narrowing to a small cuff at the wrist) is quite distinctive to the day dresses of the 1830s. Pelerines, or lace coverings draped over the shoulders, were popular (one of several devices, along with full upper-arm sleeves and wide necklines, to emphasize the shoulders and their width).[6] [edit]Gowns The fashionable feminine figure, with its sloping shoulders, rounded bust, narrow waist and full hips, was emphasized in various ways with the cut and trim of gowns. To about 1835, the small waist was accentuated with a wide belt (a fashion continuing from the 1820s). Later the waist and midriff were unbelted but cut close to the body, and the bodice began to taper to a small point at the front waist.[7] The fashionable corset now had gores to individually cup the breasts, and the bodice was styled to emphasize this shape. Evening gowns had very wide necklines and short, puffed sleeves reaching to the elbow from a dropped shoulder, and were worn with mid-length gloves. The width at the shoulder was often emphasized by gathered or pleated panels of fabric arranged horizontally over the bust and around the shoulders.[8] Morning dresses generally had high necklines, and shoulder width was emphasized with tippets or wide collars that rested on the gigot sleeves. Summer afternoon dresses might have wide, low necklines similar to evening gowns, but with long sleeves. Skirts were pleated into the waistband of the bodice, and held out with starched petticoats of linen or cotton. Around 1835, the fashionable skirt-length for middle- and upper-class women's clothes dropped from ankle-length to floor-length.