A Dolly Varden, in this sense, is a woman's outfit fashionable from about 1869 to 1875 in Britain and the United States. It is named after a character in Charles Dickens, and the items of clothing referred to are usually a hat or dress.
A Dolly Varden, in this sense, is a woman's outfit fashionable from about 1869 to 1875 in Britain and the United States. It is named after a character in Charles Dickens, and the items of clothing referred to are usually a hat or dress.
Dolly Varden is a character from Charles Dickens's 1841 historical novel Barnaby Rudge set in 1780. The Dolly Varden costume was an 1870s version of fashions of the 1770s and 1780s.
The term "Dolly Varden" in dress is generally understood to mean a brightly patterned, usually flowered, dress with a polonaise overskirt gathered up and draped over a separate underskirt. [1] The overdress is typically made from printed cotton or chintz, although it can be made from other materials such as lightweight wool, silk and muslin. An 1869 fashion doll in the collection of the V&A Museum of Childhood is dressed in the Dolly Varden mode; unusually the outfit is in dark colours. [2] The Gallery of Costume in Manchester holds a more typical Dolly Varden dress in its collections, made of white linen with a pink and mauve flowered print. [3]
A Dolly Varden hat, as it relates to the dress, is usually understood to mean a flat straw hat trimmed with flowers and ribbons, very like the 18th-century bergère hat. It is also closely related to the Pamela hat or "gipsy hat" that was popular during the earlier part of the century. [4]
Although the typical Dolly Varden fashion of the large overskirt and polonaise died out with changes in fashion at the turn of the century, the names continued to be associated with chintz patterned fabrics and peplum style dresses. Even in the late 1930s, chintz patterned fashions might still have the name 'Dolly Varden' attached to them.
The Dolly Varden fashion fad inspired many popular songs, such as G. W. Moore's "Dressed in a Dolly Varden" and Alfred Lee's novelty song, "Dolly Varden" (published Cleveland, 1872), which contains the lyrics:
Have you seen my little girl? She doesn’t wear a bonnet.
She's got a monstrous flip-flop hat with cherry ribbons on it.
She dresses in bed furniture just like a flower garden
A blowin' and a growin' and they call it Dolly Varden. [5]
In the 1870s, the Theatre Royal in London presented an entertainment called The Dolly Varden Polka, composed by W. C. Levey. [6]
Writing in 1880, Charles Bardsley reports that the forename Dolly (as a diminutive of Dorothy) had enjoyed peaks of popularity in England from 1450 to 1570 and again from 1750 to 1820, but had since fallen into decline. He continues: "Once more Dolly, saving for Dora, has made her bow and exit. I suppose she may turn up again about 1990, and all the little girls will be wearing Dolly Vardens." [7]
A notable use of the name in theatre was Dolly Varden, a comic opera starring Lulu Glaser, which opened in 1902. [8] Although the main character conforms to the Dickens character, the play itself is based on William Wycherley's The Country Wife , first performed in 1675.
In Balthazar (1958), the second novel in Lawrence Durrell's Alexandria Quartet , Scobie, a gay Binbashi, tells the protagonist Darley that when he cross-dresses he wears a Dolly Varden hat.
The fashion led to the naming of the Dolly Varden trout [9] and Dolly Varden crab. [10]
The name is also commemorated in an eponymous decorative cake. One recipe features in the 1980 Australian Women's Weekly Children's Birthday Cake Book . Also known as a 'Princess Cake', the modern Dolly Varden cake uses the torso of a doll (sometimes called a doll pick) inserted into a conical cake which is then decorated as the doll's dress. 'Dolly Varden' aluminium cake tins are now broadly available from cookware retailers for this purpose. The name for the cake no doubt developed from the Dolly Varden dress. However, in the late 19th century, the Dolly Varden cake was different. Many recipes call for a double layered cake with one layer as a lemon or vanilla cake and the other as a rich spice or fruit cake. Chunks of cherries in the cake were often used to mimic the chintz of the fashion. [11]
Victorian fashion consists of the various fashions and trends in British culture that emerged and developed in the United Kingdom and the British Empire throughout the Victorian era, roughly from the 1830s through the 1890s. The period saw many changes in fashion, including changes in styles, fashion technology and the methods of distribution. Various movement in architecture, literature, and the decorative and visual arts as well as a changing perception of gender roles also influenced fashion.
The bull trout is a char of the family Salmonidae native to northwestern North America. Historically, S. confluentus has been known as the "Dolly Varden", but was reclassified as a separate species in 1980. Populations of bull trout in the lower 48 states are listed as threatened under the U.S. Endangered Species Act, and bull trout overall are listed as vulnerable to extinction on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. The Saskatchewan-Nelson Rivers population in Alberta, Canada is listed as threatened under the Species at Risk Act.
1860s fashion in European and European-influenced countries is characterized by extremely full-skirted women's fashions relying on crinolines and hoops and the emergence of "alternative fashions" under the influence of the Artistic Dress movement.
Fashion in the 1890s in European and European-influenced countries is characterized by long elegant lines, tall collars, and the rise of sportswear. It was an era of great dress reforms led by the invention of the drop-frame safety bicycle, which allowed women the opportunity to ride bicycles more comfortably, and therefore, created the need for appropriate clothing.
1870s fashion in European and European-influenced clothing is characterized by a gradual return to a narrow silhouette after the full-skirted fashions of the 1850s and 1860s.
A bustle is a padded undergarment or wire frame used to add fullness, or support the drapery, at the back of women's dresses in the mid-to-late 19th century. Bustles are worn under the skirt in the back, just below the waist, to keep the skirt from dragging. Heavy fabric tended to pull the back of a skirt down and flatten it. As a result a woman's petticoated skirt would lose its shape during everyday wear.
Dolly Varden may refer to:
The Dolly Varden trout is a species of salmonid ray-finned fish native to cold-water tributaries of the Pacific Ocean in Asia and North America. Despite the name "trout", it belongs to the genus Salvelinus (chars), which includes 51 recognized species, the most prominent being the brook, lake and bull trout as well as the Arctic char. Although many populations are semi-anadromous, riverine and lacustrine populations occur throughout its range. It is considered by taxonomists as part of the Salvelinus alpinus complex, as many populations of bull trout, Dolly Varden trout and Arctic char overlap.
A mantua is an article of women's clothing worn in the late 17th century and 18th century. Initially a loose gown, the later mantua was an overgown or robe typically worn over stays, stomacher and either a co-ordinating or contrasting petticoat.
A riding habit is women's clothing for horseback riding.
1880s fashion in Western and Western-influenced countries is characterized by the return of the bustle. The long, lean line of the late 1870s was replaced by a full, curvy silhouette with gradually widening shoulders. Fashionable waists were low and tiny below a full, low bust supported by a corset. The Rational Dress Society was founded in 1881 in reaction to the extremes of fashionable corsetry.
The robe à la polonaise or polonaise is a woman's garment of the later 1770s and 1780s or a similar revival style of the 1870s inspired by Polish national costume, consisting of a gown with a cutaway, draped and swagged overskirt, worn over an underskirt or petticoat. From the late 19th century, the term polonaise also described a fitted overdress which extended into long panels over the underskirt, but was not necessarily draped or swagged.
This is a list of existing articles related to fashion and clothing. For individual designers, see List of fashion designers
A bergère hat is a flat-brimmed straw hat with a shallow crown, usually trimmed with ribbon and flowers. It could be worn in various ways with the brim folded back or turned up or down at whim. It is also sometimes called a milkmaid hat. It was widely worn in the mid-18th century, and versions may be seen in many British and French paintings of the period, such as The Swing by Fragonard, and in portraits by Thomas Gainsborough and Johann Zoffany, amongst others. It has been suggested that the hat was named after Madame Bergeret, who is holding a shepherdess-style hat in a Boucher portrait painted c.1766.
An overskirt is a type of women's short skirt which is draped over another garment, such as a skirt, breeches, or trousers. Although peplum is often used as another term for overskirt, it should not be confused with the peplos or "peplum dress", which was worn in ancient Greece.
A sailor hat is a brimmed straw hat similar to those historically worn by nineteenth century sailors before the sailor cap became standard. It is very close in appearance to the masculine boater, although "sailors" as worn by women and children have their own distinct design, typically flat-crowned, wide-brimmed and with a dark ribbon band extending into streamers hanging off the brim. Such hats could also be made in felt as an alternative to straw.
Princess line or princess dress describes a woman's fitted dress or other garment cut in long panels without a horizontal join or separation at the waist. Instead of relying on darts to shape the garment, the fit is achieved with long seams and shaped pattern pieces. A rarely used alternative name for the princess line was French-dart-line dress.
The Chapeau à la Paméla, Pamela hat or Pamela bonnet described a type of straw hat or bonnet popular during the 1790s and into the first three quarters of the 19th century. It was named after the heroine of Samuel Richardson's 1741 novel Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded. While Pamela hats and bonnets underwent a variety of changes in shape and form, they were always made from straw. The mid-19th-century version of the Pamela hat was a smaller version of an early 19th-century wide-brimmed style called the gipsy hat.
Dolly Varden is an unincorporated community in Clark County, in the U.S. state of Ohio.
A casaquin is a short-length closely fitted coat worn by middle- and upper-class women during the 18th century. The garment was popular in both France and Italy. A casaquin was made from linen which was then covered by embroidery, silk and lace to decorate. The design was influenced by religious beliefs or events as well as reflecting on stylistic features of the time or of individual designers. Casaquins were worn by a range of females - from working-class women to upper-class ladies. The casaquin even influenced women from the Netherlands during the 18th century to introduce their own version of a casaquin called a "Kassekijntje".
