A Victorian Lady's Guide to Fashion and Beauty eBook Release Day!
Today is the ebook release of my non-fiction fashion history book A Victorian Lady’s Guide to Fashion and Beauty! Complete with over 60 images, it provides an overview of fashionable women’s clothing, accessories, and beauty essentials from Queen Victoria’s ascent to the British throne in 1837 to her death in 1901.[…]Continue Reading
Gold and Silver Hair Powders for Fashionable Victorian Coiffures
During the mid-nineteenth century, Empress Eugénie of France was the undisputed arbiter of Victorian fashion. When she appeared at a Paris theatre in 1853 with her fair hair dusted in glittering silver powder, the fashionable world sat up and took notice. Ladies—from the upper echelons of the haut ton to the minor ranks of country gentry—were quick to imitate her and it was not long before perfumers, like Eugène Rimmel of London, began advertising glittering hair powder for the masses “as worn by the Empress Eugénie and the elite of the French nobility.”[…]Continue Reading
From Arsenic to Electricity: A Brief look at Victorian Hair Removal
(Private Collection)
In the Victorian era, ladies with excess facial or body hair didn’t have the luxury of making an appointment at their local salon. Instead, women employed various methods of hair removal at home. There was shaving and tweezing, of course, but there were also more dangerous methods. These ranged from caustic depilatories made of arsenic and quicklime to surgeon’s needles dipped in carbolic acid or nitrate of silver. Below are just a few Victorian options for hair removal (not to be tried at home!).[…]Continue Reading
The Etiquette of Broken Betrothals: Victorian Advice on Ending an Engagement
(Philadelphia Museum of Art)
In the Victorian era, a broken engagement was no small matter. If a gentleman jilted his fiancée, he risked doing untold damage to both her reputation and his own. Even so, if an engaged couple discovered that they were incompatible, Victorian era marriage manuals and books on etiquette strongly advised breaking the engagement rather than embarking on what would surely be a miserable marriage. As The New York Fashion Bazar Book of Etiquette (1887) explains:[…]Continue Reading
The Curious Case of Miss Schwich: A Victorian Girl in Boy’s Clothing
(© British Library Board)
In October of 1886, at the Marlborough Street Police Court in London, a young woman dressed in boy’s clothing was charged with stealing from her employer. Her name was Lois Schwich (sometimes spelled Schwick). She was twenty-one years old and had been wearing male attire since the age of seventeen. According to a 29 October 1886 report in the Herts & Cambs Reporter & Royston Crow:
“[Miss Schwich] had made every effort to obtain employment as a girl but had failed, and in desperation to support her starving mother, who had a young family, she assumed the garb of a boy, and succeeded in obtaining a situation.”
