A Passion for Auburn Hair: Victorian Views On Reddish-Brown Tresses
“Her friends call her hair auburn, but her enemies call it red.”
Sylvia’s Book of the Toilet, 1881.
Auburn hair has long been admired for its beauty. In the sixteenth century, Titian famously painted beautiful women with hair of a reddish hue. While in his epic Regency era poem Don Juan, Lord Byron waxed rhapsodic about dancing girls, each having:[…]Continue Reading
The Scent of Violets: Perfume, Cosmetics, and Crime in the Late Victorian Era
“The fondness for violets increases with time, and many women of fashion will tolerate no other fragrance.”
American Soap Journal and Manufacturing Chemist, 1895.
In 1893, a woman by the name of Margaret Gainer was arrested, charged, and ultimately sentenced to thirty days imprisonment for stealing a bottle of violet perfume from a hairdresser’s shop. The hairdresser had seen her take the bottle and slip it into her pocket, but when he gave her the choice of putting the bottle back or facing the consequences, Miss Gainer steadfastly refused to relinquish the violet perfume. Her motivation for the theft—and her subsequent unwillingness to part with her ill-gotten gains—is not entirely clear; however, I suspect it had more than a little to do with the late Victorian violet fad.[…]Continue Reading
Easter Bonnets of the Late 19th Century
“The Easter bonnet has long been recognized as woman’s particular weakness.”
The Illustrated American, 1886.
(Met Museum)
In the nineteenth century, Easter Sunday was an occasion for ladies of all classes to don their most fashionable bonnets. Some of these bonnets were specially bought for the holiday. Others were old bonnets made up with new trimmings. In either circumstance, Easter bonnets were as essential to celebrating Easter as were eggs and bunnies. An 1889 edition of the Ladies Home Journal even went so far as to declare that it was “an accepted fact that every woman who can buy or make a dainty bonnet for Easter-day must wear it.”[…]Continue Reading
A Fashionable Coiffure: Rolls, Plaits, and other Popular Hairstyles of 1863
“The MANNER of DRESSING the HAIR calls for much attention at the present day, and many are the inquiries addressed to us on this important subject.”
Peterson’s Magazine, 1863.
Hairstyles of the 1860s are, in my opinion, some of the most beautiful of the nineteenth century. Hair was arranged in enormous rolls or plaited into intricately woven patterns. Women donned crowns of flowers or bound their hair up into silken nets or velvet hoods. These were soft, feminine styles, lacking the Gothic severity of the 1830s and 1840s while, at the same time, still far more conservative than the long, draped curls that would come into fashion in the 1870s and 1880s. These were also the hairstyles that most of us recognize from the American Civil War era (1861-1865). Popular coiffures changed from year to year, and often from month to month. Today, we look at a few of the most fashionable styles of 1863.[…]Continue Reading
Emblems of the Soul: Butterflies in Victorian Fashion and Folklore
Victorians had a fascination with natural history. This manifested itself in various ways, not the least of which was in fashionable clothing and décor. A Victorian parlour, for example, might feature a scientific display of pinned butterflies. While insects, such as butterflies, dragonflies, beetles, and grasshoppers, were often depicted in Victorian jewellery, with some insect brooches and hairpins set en tremblant (on a spring) so that the jewelled insect would tremble and shake as if it were actually alive.[…]Continue Reading