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Victorian women's clothing was an offshoot of the woman's place in society. Because women were not allowed to be as large a part in the society as men and were expected to stay in the background and be unseen, their clothing tended to be very confining and restrictive.
A typical woman an in the 1800s would wear skirts that came all the way down to their ankles, gloves, and very tight corsets. They also wore hats to cover their heads and long sleeves. The only part of her body that a proper woman would show was her face and some part of her hair. To allow anyone to see any other part of her body was seen to be rude.
By the turn of the century, this situation began to change. The influence of popular women such as the Gibson Girls altered the acceptable view of what was proper and began to loosen things up.
The Gibson Girl style was fostered by Charles Dana Gibson, and featured a very restricted waist, high collars, long sleeves, and hairdos that were predominantly designed to create a pile of hair on top of the head.
Dresses were designed with the idea of producing a prominent breast area and forcing the hips back by use of a corset. The dresses were made of lighter fabric than in the late 1800s and featured fine lacework. While some colors were used, white was the preferred fabric.
Wraps were a very common accessory for women of the time. These were either long coats, or in some cases, furs. Underneath everything was the foundation of women's fashion, the corset. Made of whalebone and very restricting, these corsets emphasized the bosom while narrowing the waist to an extreme. Petticoats were worn over the corset, usually white in cooler and trimmed with various lace designs.
Other important accessories of the time were hats and gloves. The hats were usually large elaborate affairs, trimmed with bows and ribbons, veils, and flowers. Hats were expected to draw the attention of the onlooker and provide an accent to the dress.
By the time of the roaring twenties, things had changed considerably. Skirts were shorter, the materials used to make dresses were lighter and more comfortable, and women were no longer restricted to covering their arms with long sleeves year round.
This transition began years earlier, around 1910, when fashion dictates changed. Rather than the jutting bosom and tiny pinched waist, a more straightforward line emerged. Skirts no longer had to blossom out, and the waistlines were moved upward.
Simple design came to the forefront in this era, as women abandoned the more rigid dictates of fashion and experienced a freer society view of their role. Variety also began to appear, as women could choose between dresses, a mixture of skirts and blouses, and even suits, which were a jacket and skirt combination.
Underlying this fashion was a change in corset design, which was a welcome change to most women. Rather than the extremely tight and uncomfortable whalebone corset, they became lighter and longer to accent the lines of the dress.
Eveningwear of the period was a little different in that it featured a lower neckline and was usually made of a more expensive fabric such as silk.
The beginning of World War I marked a change in women's fashions because it created shortage in certain fabrics and some women's clothes were designed to mimic military uniforms. It also forced women's clothing to move from a frivolous nature to a more practical nature. In addition, because women were replacing men at work, they changed from dresses to pants.
By the 1920s major changes had begun to take hold in women's clothing, a result of changes in society's view of women in general. Women were able to move more freely in society and the clothing reflected that change. Clothing was lighter and less restrictive, and also more revealing. It also began to reflect a greater influence of young people who for the first time, began to dictate the fashion trends that were emulated by older generations.
Clothing for women in the 20s still consisted primarily of dresses. These dresses were shorter than previously and the waistline was either unmarked or at the hip. Sleeves were either shorter or the dresses were made sleeveless and as the 20s progressed the hemlines crept up to just below the knees.
Because of the design of the dresses which were looser and straighter, the feminine figure was less emphasized than in previous years, and a woman with a round full figure was not as fashionable as a woman with a more slender figure. This resulted in a change in women's undergarments, as corsets moved from figure enhancing designs, to designs intended to flatten the bosom.
In just a few years, women's clothing had evolved from highly restrictive and concealing items to a much freer and more revealing trend. While the women's clothing fashions of the 20s may seem to be very modest in today's worlds, the change over a single lifetime was startling and indicative of the growing role of women in society.