Vintage guide offered turn-of-the-century seamstresses clear instructions for altering patterns and creating shirt-blouses, skirts, wedding gowns, coats, maternity wear, children's clothing, and other apparel.

Victorian ladies' fashions as seen through contemporary fashion publications dating from 1880 through 1890. Also included are 15 patterns for making a doll's outfit consisting of a frock, fur-trimmed cloak with matching bonnet and muff (fits a 23in [58cm] doll) adapted from an 1890 Delineator magazine. Over 285 photos.

Bonnets, capes, caps, shawls, bodices, and crinolines as people actually wore them from 1840 to 1914. More than 200 photos depict aristocrats and members of the middle class as well as celebrities.

The sweeping crinolines, corsets, bustles, bonnets, and parasols of Victorian Britain are indispensable to our period dramas, and their influences can still be seen within burlesque and steampunk fashions. This is no surprise, as nineteenth-century clothing was so wide-ranging and decorative. We might unfairly think gentlemen's costume to be rather plain and uniform, but this is more by contrast to the overwhelming ostentation, luxury fabrics, fine accessories, and constantly evolving silhouettes of ladies' fashion. This colorful introduction to what the Victorians wore describes the vibrant, fancy materials and lace edging at one end of the spectrum, and the tightlaced sobriety of mourning apparel at the other. It examines both high fashion imports from Paris and more modest everyday wear, evening costume, bridal styles, children's clothes and sportswear, and explores the social and cultural backdrop to clothing in Britain's great age of industry and empire.

Panoramic display of evolving styles ranges from hoop-skirted gowns of the mid-1800s to turn-of-the-century fashions that produced diminished bustles and close-fitting skirts. "A superb resource." — History in Review.

Rich selection of dressmakers' patterns from popular, late-19th-century magazine The Voice of Fashion includes 50 garments for women, from day and evening dresses to tennis outfits and undergarments. 498 illustrations.