Rezumat referat About the life of womens after 1850
About the life of womens after 1850
The subject of fashion may seem frivolous to some until we realize that women’s
dress has always reflected the dynamic changes in society; the exclusive handmade dresses-in a period where animal and human muscles were the only source of power -- gradually gave way to the popularity of "tailor made" clothes as textile factories dotted the landscape of early 19th century northern England. Victorian sartorial elegance in its various modes depicted England’s prosperity as the world’s economic power. By the 1850s England was undoubtedly the greatest power in Europe; her breakthrough in steam power in 1790 and the subsequent mechanized production of goods made England the envy of the world. While Europe and the rest of the world were still relying on an agrarian economy, Victorian England was experiencing a whole new lifestyle which largely revolved around machines.
The Industrial Revolution in England spawned a prosperous middle-class, numerous and important enough to direct and set the political and socio-economic standard in Victorian England.The power of machines, however, both fascinated and alarmed Victorians; the socio-economic structure of 19th century England was swiftly changing;middle-class families became highly hierarchical as only the husbands went out to work; this gave them more power because they were now sole "breadwinners." Wives remained at home and became ladies of the house in every sense of the word;Victorian upper class women were now idealized (but it was spiritual worship that confined women in the home), and most of them portrayed the Victorian ideal of womanhood: chaste, ornamental women who were society’s moral guardians, but still dependent on the goodwill of their devoted male worshippers.Victorian middle-class women and men like everything else they did-took their roles as "ornamental" ladies of the house and chivalrous providers very seriously. Their high-minded seriousness were in part nurtured by Puritan and utilitarian ethics.
Industrial England by mid-19th century made available to middle-class women fashionable clothes of quality which, hitherto, only aristocrats could afford.
Corsets and tightlacing to some dress reformers were seen as devices that "mutilated" women; not only did these beauty devices reshape the body, they were believed to have caused miscarriages, the birth of inferior babies, illnesses and even licentiousness. "Medical theorists" argued that this made blood become "impure and corrupt," caused "disease to the brain," and inevitably led to "impure feelings." "Weak-minded" ladies were, therefore, easy preys of temptation.
Fashion in women’s dress is characterized by constant small changes in decoration and design, leading slowly to changes in general style and silhouette. Thus the bell shape peaked in the mid-1860s, to be superseded by a straight front line with a pile of material over the buttocks known as a bustle. This silhouette remained dominant until the 1900s. In 1899, in The Theory of the Leisure Class, Thorstein Veblen presented the principle that, while the pursuit of wealth demanded middle-class men’s full attention, their wives became decorated objects, displaying in their dress a capitalist "conspicuous consumption."
Women’s dress in the era 1850-65 gets progressively larger and more horizontal in outline. Gone are all the lines pointing down, and women in fashion illustrations get a slightly more assertive look in their expressions, more often looking out at the viewer at eye level.
The 1890s were the truly revolutionary years in the matter of dress and the desirable "look." Developments set in motion then were gradually worked out in succeeding decades. Skirts became shorter and tight lacing was abandoned; in the early 1920s the "flapper," with her slim, boyish body, short hair, and insouciant manner, became the new model of beauty, embodying the personal independence and social rebelliousness of the decade. Yet, although often presented as a model of freedom, the flapper actually was hemmed in by restrictions, reflective of the ambiguous position of feminism in the interwar years. The dominant beauty standards called for heavy makeup and a thin body, which required strict dieting. Fashion also dictated a bosomless body line best achieved by binding the breasts, thus often destroying muscular structure. In addition, the celebration of youth that had long been a feature of American fashion became a near-fetish in the 1920s. Advertising and the commercialized culture of beauty reached their early maturity and based their sales appeals on valorizing an evanescent stage of life. Finally, the continuation of the beauty contest, already popular by the 1900s, focused women’s competitive spirit on their bodies, in contrast to men, who competed in business and sports.
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