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 the traditional gender roles also influenced fashion.
The Young British Artists, or YBAs—also referred to as Brit artists and Britart—is a loose group of visual artists who first began to exhibit together in London in 1988. Many of the first generation of YBA artists graduated from the BA Fine Art course at Goldsmiths, in the late 1980s, while the second generation mostly came from the Royal College of Art.
The bowler hat, also known as a billycock, bob hat, bombín (Spanish) or derby, is a hard felt hat with a rounded crown, originally created by the London hat-makers Thomas and William Bowler in 1849. It has traditionally been worn with semi-formal and informal attire. The bowler, a protective and durable hat style, was popular with the British, Irish, and American working classes during the second half of the 19th century, and later with the middle and upper classes in the United Kingdom, Ireland, and the east coast United States.
A top hat is a tall, flat-crowned hat for men traditionally associated with formal wear in Western dress codes, meaning white tie, morning dress, or frock coat. Traditionally made of black silk or sometimes grey, the top hat emerged in Western fashion by the end of 18th century. Although it declined by the time of the counterculture of the 1960s, it remains a formal fashion accessory. A collapsible variant of a top hat, developed in the 19th century, is known as an opera hat.
A hat is a head covering which is worn for various reasons, including protection against weather conditions, ceremonial reasons such as university graduation, religious reasons, safety, or as a fashion accessory.
Dame Mary Louise Webster,, known professionally as May Whitty and later, for her charity work, Dame May Whitty, was an English stage and film actress. She was one of the first two women entertainers to become a Dame. The British actors' union Equity was established in her home. After a successful career she moved over to Hollywood films at the age of 72. She went to live in America, where she won awards for her film roles.
A flat cap is a rounded cap with a small stiff brim in front, originating in the British Isles. The hat is known in Ireland simply as a cap, in Scotland as a bunnet, in Wales as a Dai cap, in New Zealand as a cheese-cutter, and in the United States as a driving cap. Cloths used to make the cap include wool, tweed, and cotton. Less common materials may include leather, linen, or corduroy. The inside of the cap is commonly lined for comfort and warmth.
A crinoline is a stiff or structured petticoat designed to hold out a woman's skirt, popular at various times since the mid-19th century. Originally, crinoline was described as a stiff fabric made of horsehair ("crin") and cotton or linen which was used to make underskirts and as a dress lining.
The tutu is a dress worn as a costume in a classical ballet performance, often with attached bodice. It may be made of tarlatan, muslin, silk, tulle, gauze, or nylon. Modern tutus have two basic types: the Romantic tutu is soft and bell-shaped, reaching the calf or ankle; the Classical tutu is short and stiff, projecting horizontally from the waist and hip.
"Chav", also "charver" and "scally" in parts of England is a British pejorative term used to describe an anti-social lower-class youth dressed in sportswear. "Chavette" is a related term referring to female chavs, and the adjectives "chavvy", "chavvish", and "chavtastic" are used to describe things associated with chavs, such as fashion, slang, etc. In Ireland, "skanger" is used in a similar manner.
Morning dress, also known as formal day dress, is the formal Western dress code for day attire, consisting chiefly of, for men, a morning coat, waistcoat, and formal trousers, and an appropriate gown for women. Men may also wear a popular variant where all parts are the same colour and material, often grey and usually called "morning suit" or "morning grey" to distinguish it; considered properly appropriate only to festive functions such as summer weddings and horse races, which consequently makes it slightly less formal. The correct hat would be a formal top hat, or if on less spacious audience settings optionally a collapsible equivalent opera hat.
Outside of Japan, a Shitagi, a type of shirt worn by the Samurai class of feudal Japan when they were wearing full armour.
William Mervyn Pickwoad was an English actor best known for his portrayal of the bishop in the clerical comedy All Gas and Gaiters, the old gentleman in The Railway Children and Inspector Charles Rose in The Odd Man and its sequels.
Dunce is a mild insult in English meaning a person who is slow at learning or stupid. In art, dunces are often comedically shown wearing paper cone hats – dunce caps – marked with 'dunce', 'dumb', or 'D'. Schoolchildren were sometimes compelled to wear a dunce cap and to stand or sit on a stool in the corner as a form of punishment for misbehaving or for failing to demonstrate that they had properly performed their studies.
A himation was a type of clothing, a mantle or wrap worn by ancient Greek men and women from the Archaic through the Hellenistic periods. It was usually worn over a chiton and/or peplos, but was made of heavier drape and played the role of a cloak or shawl. When the himation was used alone, without a chiton, and served both as a chiton and as a cloak, it was called an achiton. The himation was markedly less voluminous than the Roman toga. It was usually a large rectangular piece of woollen cloth. Many vase paintings depict women wearing a himation as a veil covering their faces.
A cornette is a piece of female headwear. It is essentially a type of wimple consisting of a large, starched piece of white cloth that is folded upwards in such a way as to create the resemblance of horns on the wearer's head. It remained fashionable for some Parisian ladies around 1800, wearing ones made of muslin or gauze and richly ornamented with lace.
A greatcoat, also known as a watchcoat, is a large overcoat that is typically made of wool designed for warmth and protection against the weather. Its collar and cuffs can be turned out to protect the face and hands from cold and rain, and the short cape around the shoulders provides extra warmth and repels rainwater. During the 17th and 18th centuries and the Industrial Revolution, greatcoats became available for all social classes. It was popular in the 19th century as a military uniform and casual wear for the wealthy, and is still issued for inclement weather by many armed forces around the world.
Outside Western cultures, men's clothing commonly includes skirts and skirt-like garments; however, in North America and much of Europe, the wearing of a skirt is today usually seen as typical for women and girls and not men and boys, the most notable exceptions being the cassock and the kilt. People have variously attempted to promote the wearing of skirts by men in Western culture and to do away with this gender distinction, however skirts have been a female garment since the 16th Century, and was left behind by men due to a cultural convention along the time, albeit with limited general success and considerable cultural resistance.
Trousers, slacks, or pants are an item of clothing that might have originated in Central Asia, worn from the waist to the ankles, covering both legs separately.
John Peter Wearing is an Anglo-American theatre historian and professor, who has written numerous books and articles about nineteenth and twentieth-century drama and theatre, including The Shakespeare Diaries: A Fictional Autobiography, published in 2007. He has also written and edited well-received books on George Bernard Shaw, Arthur Wing Pinero, extensive reference series on the London theatre from 1890 to 1980, and theatrical biographies, among other subjects. As a professor of English literature, Wearing has specialised in Shakespeare and modern drama.
