Go House Hunting For A Victorian Mansion To Find Out Your 1880s Style

You would have often ditched your black suit with its hot, long, black frock coat for the a lighter-colored informal sack coat — or, you would have detested the corset and coverage of your everyday clothes, and felt much freer in your bathing suit.

While some dresses were still blending horizontal and vertical stripes, you would have gone for a bold vertical stripe ~before~ it was actually cool. Or, as soon as suits started showing cutaways, you would have rushed to get have one made — with the lowest cutaway your tailor had ever seen.

Whether you would have been a regular at the milliner’s (always requesting feathers, silk flowers, ribbons, birds, and any other decorations he had on offer) or you would have insisted on donning the appropriate hat, tie, watch, cane, and shoes anytime you left the house — your accessories would have always been perfect and appropriate.

You would have been the first one at the hot party with his coat off, and you’d always be forgetting to wear your hat. Or, as soon as bustles began to drop in the 1890s you would have dropped yours entirely. And you were tired of being so damned hot all the time, so you would have asked your dressmaker for short sleeves on your new evening gown. (This is actually a photo of Lillie Langtry, an English actress and business owner who was a celebrity in her own right.)

When everyone started wearing suit jackets with cutaways in the late 1880s, you would have sometimes still worn your old jacket and checked pants. Or, when bustles began to drop in the 1890s, you would have still wanted to wear your full-bustled gown. Especially when you did things that made you happy, like sit for a portrait with your dogs!

When small cutaways and silk imperial ties came into vogue, and when dresses with smaller bustles were all the rage, you would have definitely had a new suit or dress made for your family portraits — and a new suit or dress made for everyone in your family, too.