1864 Women’s Fashion: Dresses Adorned with Ruffles, Bows, and Lace
1864 Women’s Fashion
The year 1864 marked a significant period in the history of women’s fashion. The fashion trends of this year featured dresses adorned and trimmed lavishly with ruffles, bows, and lace, among many other luxurious fabrics . The spirit of the clothing in 1864 was borrowed from the more scanty toilettes of Louis XVI reign . This meant increased ornamentation, more obvious with evening wear, in the form of “trimmings (ruching, velvet appliqué, passementerie, lace)” which “seem to have taken up the slack where tiers and double skirts once reigned” . Another common trend for the evening are “the open wide neckline [that] was practically universal” .
The dresses of this year had a multitude of flowers, bows, lace, flounces, and frills . Tassels were another popular trimming that adorned even the simplest of day dresses . In a May 1864 column of The Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine, the editor speaks to the rise of passementerie (or heavy braid) as a form of ornamentation: “Passementerie with jet was never more worn than now. It is placed upon everything. If an elegant and at the same time rich body is required, passementerie mixed with jet must not only be put round the edge of it, but round the pockets, and even the seams at the back” .
The fashion column of The Lady’s Friend speaks to the spirit of the clothing in 1864:
“Two years ago the fashions were borrowed from the taste of the eighteenth century, and particularly the Pompadour style, and now they are borrowed from the more scanty toilettes of Louis XVI reign” . This quote highlights the fact that fashion is cyclical and that styles from the past can be reinterpreted and adapted to suit the current times.
In conclusion
the fashion trends of 1864 were characterized by dresses adorned with ruffles, bows, and lace, among many other luxurious fabrics. The spirit of the clothing in 1864 was borrowed from the more scanty toilettes of Louis XVI reign. The dresses of this year had a multitude of flowers, bows, lace, flounces, and frills. Tassels were another popular trimming that adorned even the simplest of day dresses. Passementerie with jet was also a popular form of ornamentation in 1864.