Robe à l'Anglaise

1780s

Collection Galleria del Costume di Palazzo Pitti

FWIW, "mauve" was one of the coal-tar dyes developed in the mid-19th century that made eye-wateringly bright clothing fashionable for a few decades.

It was an eye-popping magenta purple

HOWEVER, like most aniline dyes, it faded badly, to a washed-out blue-grey ...

...which was the color ignorant youngsters in the 1920s associated with “mauve”.

(This dress is labeled "mauve" as it is the color the above becomes after fading).

They colored their vision of the past with washed-out pastels that were NOTHING like the eye-popping electric shades the mid-Victorians loved. This 1926 fashion history book by Paul di Giafferi paints a hugely distorted, I would say dishonest picture of the past.

Ever since then this faded bluish lavender and not the original electric eye-watering hot pink-purple is the color associated with the word “mauve”.

Art conservator here! I did part of my master's degree on Perkin's mauve dye (which he named mauveine) and it's a violet purple, not quite so magenta as that first dress pic. I got to do chemical analysis on an actual 1856 sample of the dye! And the sample I dissolved and painted out on paper most resembled Pantone 266, which apparently translates to hex #7329b0. Mauveine is significant because it was THE FIRST synthetic dye ever made.

And it was actually quite fade-resistant! Much moreso than natural dyes. People in the 1920s would have known about their grandmothers' super bright colors, because those dresses were still folded up in the attic or still in scraps in patchwork quilts, and their grannies were right there to tell them (just like my 2020s niece recently tried on some 1960s dresses that belongd to my mom). And the word magenta has kept its meaning, even though it was also an aniline dye of the same era (and might be the dye in that first dress, aka fuchsine). So I don't know why the word mauve came to mean a muddy pale color, but I don't think it's because later generations were ignorant about historic dye colors. Apparently the color name "mauve taupe" was first used in 1925 for a muddy purple, so maybe that was the start of the shift.

PS, mauve is named for the French word for the mallow flower (probably this one, Malva sylvestris). I love it.

PS! (Sorry-not-sorry, I just really love mauveine history), read more about Perkin's mauve here! And look at this dress dyed with mauveine. Gorgeous! I can barely imagine how amazing that time must have been, to see previously unattainable brilliant flower colors on fabric. We're so used to having fabric in absolutely any color we want, but there just wasn't any purple dye like that ever before.

PPS (SORRY AGAIN!) I was curious about that first dress, and I searched around and found that it was listed on another tumblr as being mauveine, but that was incorrect. The dress lives at the V&A and they describe it as being a magenta dye, but they don't identify which dye. But also, the first picture posted here appears to have been color enhanced compared to the V&A's photos. Go and look, it's gorgeous.

Thank you so much! for your additions to my old semi-informed post that for no reasons I can discern (I am a tiny account) went viral.

This is a fascinating addition that gives it way more context. I wish I had known it when I made the OP, especially given the views it's been getting.

Now I wonder if people in the 1920s thought mauve was that washed out grey-violet because of the fugitive nature of printer's inks?

Or maybe it was just one of those things.

Anyway, thank you so much. This is really interesting!

Hi again OP! By the mid-late 19th century, most printer's inks were just as stable as fabric dyes, or even moreso. Some were also aniline dyes like the ones used in fabric. Maybe someone in fashion started hyping a muddy purple as the cool new mauve and soon everyone was talking about it, like how "millennial pink" got invented. I think more fashion/design history research is needed, which is not my forte.

Fascinating!

I love this sort of fashion history!

Also, I need the first dress shown. Right now.

Robe à la Polonaise

1780s

The Kyoto Costume Institute

I don’t really Go Here but u can always rely on this man to read a right wing politician’s outfit for filth

I mean. Just devastating 😭

This man has LETHAL comebacks. Idiots keep trying to get one over on him and he has never missed

Actually no I’m double reblogging this I found the one where he *calls a guy’s tailor* to confirm his suit isn’t actually bespoke

You cannot win in his arena. This isn’t “if you come at the king you better not miss” this is “don’t fight a shark in the water”

He’s one of the few things I miss from Twitter

Names of shades and when in Regency England they were most popular.

REGENCY COLOUR COMPENDIUM, WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN ALL MY LIFE??

...from men

His name is Zach Pinsent, he was recently proposed to by his boyfriend Alex Zarlengo, and is a tailor and bespoke sewist.

Both Zach's and Alex's pintrests can be found below:

Zach: https://www.instagram.com/pinsent_tailoring/

Alex: https://www.instagram.com/alexzarlengo/

Avavav always has the most interesting concepts

Okay this is a BRILLIANT illustration of how the fast fashion industry devours literally everybody it touches, but knowing what I know about models, I'm willing to bet these people JUMPED at the chance to look exactly as they feel on a bad day on the runway and not be fired for it.

“Bamboo is antifungal”

Because it’s rayon

“Eucalyptus fabric is cooling!”

Yeah, because it’s rayon

“We make clothing called seacell out of seaweed!”

Yeah I looked on your website it’s made by the lyocell process, which means-

-wait for it-

Listen. There is a list of actual plant fibers that are directly made into fabric: cotton, linen, ramie, some hemp. I’m sure I’m missing a couple.

But if you’re wondering “huh how did they turn that plant material into fabric,” 99% of the time? It’s RAYON.

All rayon is made by putting plant material in chemical soup, dissolving out everything but the cellulose, and turning the cellulose into filaments/fibers.

The source of the cellulose has zero effect on the eventual fabric.

Rayon made from bamboo or eucalyptus or seaweed is not any better than rayon from any other sources.

Don’t let companies mislead you!

Hold on I need to DuckDuckGo something

Damn this was supposed to be a joke but turns out it’s hard to get scientifically rigorous comparisons of environmental impact across textile products from a casual search. “It’s all fucking rayon” appears mostly true but also I’m finding plenty of claims that it’s more sustainable than cotton anyway.

But that’s not what this post was actually about anyway so like

So it's worth separating out two things here:

This post is mostly about the first thing. A lot of companies are giving rayon many many different names as a way of disguising that It's Just Rayon, and claiming the fabric has special qualities.

But cellulose is cellulose. The process of extruding it into filaments and making those filaments into fibers/yarn/fabric is what gives it different qualities: some rayon is silky, some is fuzzy, etc.

It's all great at absorbing sweat, and it all takes longer to dry, and it insulates okay until it gets damp at which point it's worse than wearing nothing, which is why it's often blended into other things. The really nice tops I have from Uniqlo's Heattech line are a blend of a couple of synthetics and rayon. They're warm for being so thin and stretchy, but don't make me sweaty-feeling at all. (In a conversation among people with ADHD I found out I'm not the only one who wears them nearly daily for 3/4ths of the year lol.)

The irony of how often it's compared to polyester in the notes of this post is that polyester can also be made into a billion different textures. I have polyester that feels like wearing a plastic tarp, but I also own polyester that's light and breezy and totally comfy in boiling heat. I also have some very soft polyester fleece, as many people do. It's all a matter of how the filaments are extruded and how they're made into fabric.

But to get into the environmental stuff:

People get really into which fabrics are more "sustainable."

And rayon currently is made, 99% of the time, via one of two processes: viscose and lyocell (Tencel is a brand name for the lyocell process). Viscose is an older method and far more common, to the point that if a fabric doesn't specify that it's lyocell (or cuproammonium) you can probably assume it's viscose. Viscose is, generally speaking, far more polluting and hazardous to the humans working in the factory as well. Lyocell uses what's called a "closed-loop" method, so it puts out way fewer pollutants. It's also more expensive, generally speaking. There is such a thing as "ecoviscose" but I haven't looked into it.

(Modal just means rayon made from beech trees and afaict doesn't differentiate which process. Cupro is made using a less-common process called "cuproammonium," and I'm not sure how polluting it is, but apparently in China it's sometimes called "ammonia silk" which is wild.)

Rayon does have two definite advantages, despite everything I said up there:

BUT THAT ALL SAID: every fabric requires something shitty, quite frankly. Cotton takes a TON of water and usually pesticides. Silk requires a lot of farming of mulberry and then electricity to warm the places where the silkworms live and also you have to cook the silkworms alive so they don't cut the fibers. Linen requires its own chemical soup to be turned into usable fibers unless you're making it from flax the old fashioned way which requires a lot of time and a shit-ton of effort. (Like seriously there's rippling, retting, breaking, scutching, and hackling. And THEN you can spin it into thread.) Wool requires a lot of land etc for sheep, but also any wool item you own that's machine washable has had the barbs melted off the fibers with chemicals, and in many cases is also coated with a resin!

And that's not getting into dying. But if you've ever dyed fabric at home you know that it usually requires careful handling and in many cases goggles. Those chemicals are often toxic as fuck.

If you're trying to be sustainable in your clothing choices, the fact is that the absolute best thing you can do is:

"What fiber is it made of" just matters way fucking less than buying fewer items of clothing and using them until they wear out.

But most people don't want to do those things. They want to know which brand of clothes is "sustainable."

The sustainable thing is to buy and throw away less clothes. That's it.

1913 Evening dress of Vera Karakhan by House of Paul Poiret

velvet, tulle, silver lace, galloon, silk and metallic threads, polychrome bugles, beads, imitation pearls, silk flowers

(State Hermitage Museum)

As a fashion history and folklore nerd I am highkey obsessed with Anna Juhász Szép

Download this easy DIY clothing repair guide (only 10 pages) from Uni of Kentucky

link to PDF

• Dress.

Date: 1730-1760

Dress, c.1760, silk brocaded taffeta, England.

This circa 1760 gown emphasizes that the basic silhouette of women’s fashion had not changed significantly since the late seventeenth century, but by varying a gown’s textiles, colors, trims, and motifs—all showcased on expansive skirts—one could keep current with fashion. This gown’s colorful brocade fabric was likely handwoven on a complex draw loom in Europe. Yet the silhouette, rather than its costly silk, is what indicates its degree of formality. The robe à l’anglaise, distinguished by wide pleats stitched down at the center back, evoked life in an English country house and was worn in more relaxed social settings.

The Museum at FIT. 

Victorian Dress For Every Occasion - 1890s Edition

The Victorian period was much about appearances and very specific etiquette, especially when it came to clothing. They had dressing etiquette for literally every activity during the day and people changed their outfit many times a day, especially in upper class circles. It honestly gets very convoluted so I decided to look into it more deeply. Not understanding the dress etiquette of the times creates a lot of weird costumes in period drama for example, where a dress might have elements of real extent garments, but they are combined in ways that would make no sense to Victorians.

To limit this post and my research I’m looking into 1890s. I also think it gives better idea about the differences between the outfits if they are all from the same decade. I’ll also limit myself to upper class and women’s clothing. I think it would be interesting to look at men’s dress etiquette and etiquette of the lower classes, but alas it has to be another post.

The broad strokes are that from the turn of the 19th century to WW1 during the day you would wear long sleeves and little to no cleavage and in the evening you could show more skin, except when dining. The specifics shifted from time and place.

Nightgown

Nightgown, as you might guess, was worn for sleeping. They started as basically shifts, the very basic under dress worn next to skin, but during the Victorian Era they became increasingly elaborate and when 1890s was reached they were profoundly extra. You would never show yourself in your nightgown alone. For them it was probably pretty much the same as wearing only your underwear. Even in your bedroom or dressing room you would cover it up, which leads us to…

Dressing Gown

Dressing gown was exactly what was used to cover nightgown. In some sources I’ve seen this called wrapper. But basically it was a glorified bathrobe. It was not used outside your own private chambers, but inside them while you got ready for the day. It was usually long and loose comfortable robe, often tied by waist with a cord. During summer they were light and in winter they might have been woolen or from quilted fabric for warmth. They were heavily inspired from especially Japanese kimono as Orientalism was very in in Europe during 19th century. Under it a ribbon corset or morning corset could be used, but that was not necessary. Ribbon corset was made entirely of thick ribbons and ended under the bust, with only couple of bones to keep it in shape, and morning corset doesn’t have cording and instead is just wrapped around the torso. They were made for comfort and bust support and didn’t shape heavily or reduce waist.

Wrapper

Wrapper or morning dress was used during the morning in the comfort of home. The terminology around this type of clothing is murky and they had a lot of overlap with tea gown and dressing gown. Some primary sources described wrapper as something you can wear on top of a dress to keep the dress clean and others as plainer and looser version of the day dress. Most extent garments, I found from 1890s, were the latter type. The former sounds something that could be used as a dressing gown too, which would explain, why the dressing gown was called wrapper in some sources. What I have gathered, is that earlier in Victorian era wrapper meant something similar to dressing gown, but maybe more presentable or dress-like, worn over a morning dress of just the undergarments. I think by the 1890s the whole outfit worn in morning had begun to be referred as wrapper, since I had a hard time finding morning dresses dated to 1890s. Regardless of the terminology, in 1890s wrapper was used in home outside personal chambers. It was acceptable to receive early visitors in it, but it was very informal and mostly reserved for very close people. It was plain and practical, but when it comes to rich people it became increasingly elaborate during Victorian era. It’s a theme here. It was often loose, but it could be more or less structured (often less). Under it you would usually wear all the typical undergarment layers (combinations or shift with drawers, corset, corset cover and petticoat), though morning or ribbon corset could be worn instead of the normal one.

Tea gown

Tea gowns started as house dress, basically an open presentable wrapper worn over a fancier petticoat or morning dress, but by the 1890s it became somewhat of a statement piece. At first it was seen as tacky to be too dressed up in your own home, even when receiving guests, but I think we have established that 1890s Victorians were very, very extra. Tea gowns were worn for receiving house guests during the day and in the late Victorian era, as tea gowns had become so extravagant, they were also used in the evening for receiving casual gatherings of close friends or family. Similar to wrappers, they were looser than clothing worn outside, but could be structured or lack any structuring at all. Except they were made from more expensive materials and had much more detailing. They also often had drains and a real or fake open robe-like thing, which I assume was a nod to house dresses. All the undergarments were worn under it, but morning or ribbon corset could be used under it, if very close friends were visiting. Very loose tea gowns (like the pink one on the right) were inspired from the Victorian counter culture fashion movement, Aesthetic movement, which rejected the rigid Victorian silhouette.

Day dress

Day dress or afternoon dress was formal and elaborate, as it was used outside of home and meant to be seen. Unlike the gowns reserved for home usage, it was generally made from two pieces, bodice and skirt. But of course, you would always wear matching pieces. It had long sleeves and high neckline. As the name reveals, it was worn during daytime. It could be worn for visiting and then, especially when visiting close friends or relatives, it could have slightly shorter sleeves or lower neckline, but not as low as with evening wear. It was also worn for promenading outside. When used for carriage rides train was acceptable, when for walks, shorter one was seen as preferable, but as we know Victorians were extra and sometimes still wore a train. Since weddings were (and are) held during the day, a day dress was used for that too. The finest day dress was used of course and after queen Victoria’s wedding white became the most popular color. People who weren’t rich, might have still opted out from it, as pure white dress was very expensive.

Walking dress

Walking dress was, you guessed, used for walking. Victorians were really into city walks and would use a walking dress for looking around in cities. It was a type of day dress but much more practical and less elaborate. It was usually made from sturdier materials and the skirt was short enough to reveal shoes. It often had a skirt, blouse and a coat, sometimes a waistcoat too. Because of it’s practicality, it was often used for travelling too.

Dinner dress

Dinner dress was used in evening, but unlike other evening dresses, more skin coverage was appropriate. Sleeves could be as short as elbow length and neckline could be more open than with day dress. As the name suggests, it was used for dining and dinner parties.

Evening dress

Evening dress was the fanciest of them all and the most official. It had short sleeves or only straps (in the middle of the decade huge sleeves very very fashionable) and low and wide neckline. It was used in fancy evening occasions when presenting yourself for the high society. Balls were of course the main events of high society, there every one would put on the best they had, there was no holding back. For opera people also dressed to be seen and would dress up, but for theater a little toned down look was more appropriate.

It was very common to have bodices for different occasions (day/evening/dinner) made for the same skirt, so same material and style, but different sleeve lengths and necklines. Clothing were very expensive and the skirt had the biggest amount of fabric making it the most expensive part, so it was very economical to use the same skirt for different occasions.

Robe à la française ca. 1750-60

From Cora Ginsburg

Dress

1804-1815

Austria

The MET (Accession Number: C.I.39.13.52)