London Life in the 19th Century

London Fashion

Fashion in the 1800´s was less a palette for self- expression than a means of ostentatiously displaying your wealth and social status.

The advent of the sewing machine in 1851, invented by Isaac Merrit Singer, enabled women´s fashion to move faster than ever before. London Christmas fashions in 1878 show this change; advertising numerous dresses, materials and patterns, they are clearly set up for mass production on a scale that would have been impossible before Singer´s machine arrived.

The dresses most women wore were dictated by the latest styles produced by couturiers like Charles Worth, an Englishman who worked in Paris. As with fashion today, these styles, seen on royalty and members of the aristocracy, were copied and cheaper versions of them worn by the less wealthy and the working class. The originals though were beautifully made in luxurious combinations of silks, taffetas, velvets and brocades.

Magazines produced illustrations to inspire their readers. Victorian codes of public morality meant that women had to cover up; and they certainly took this advice, wearing layer upon layer of clothing, and creating dramatic silhouettes with enormous bustles and corsets so tight that they endangered their health!

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- 1841 Census - 1851 Census - 1861 Census - 1871 Census - 1881 Census - 1891 Census - 1901 Census - 1911 Census -