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girls' and women's fashions dresses dress styles
Skirted Garments: Dresses--Styles
Figure 1.--This portrait is of Viva Payne and her two granddaughters, Waldron and Helen Pyne. The cabinet card portrait looks to have been taken around 1910. We would guess the late-1900s or the early-1910s decades. The girls wear two types of dresses. One is a accentuated waistlibe dress. The other is an A-line dress with no waistline. Notice the smocking on tyhe iunger guirl's dress. While the dresses are different, the decortive shoulder treatrment is similar. Both girls have hair biows of a sort. The studio may be Payne in Watkins, New York.
HBC at this time does not have detailed information on girls' dress styles. This would be very helful in helping to assess undated image and to comapre with styles of dresses boys wore over time. HBC would be very interested in working with a reader interested in developing information on historical girls' dress styles. We have begun to collect some information. We note a huge number if dress styles. Girls began wearing Empire style frocks made in white muslin with high-waists anfd short, balooning sleeves. These frocks were in keeping with the temper of the times, and gave the impression of revolutionary freedom and a girlish innocence. They were also much less restrictive than the cumbersome dresses formerly worn. Girls continued wearing only dresses throught the 19th century, albeit with considerable stylistic changes. Gradually girls dresses became much more elaborate and restrictive. The peak of this was the hoop dress in the mid-19th century. Other popular styles were A-line, applique, baby-doll, balloon, chifon, frock, halter, jacketed, mini, national styles, multi-layer, party, pinafore, princess, tutu, sailor, summer/sun, smocked, and many other dress styles. Unlike boys clothing which was styled differently than their father's outfits, girls often wore dresses styled like their mothers, albeit often with shorter hems. It should be dress, that these styles are not mutually exclusive, but dresses masy include multiple features. The problem for fashion historians is that the dresses portrayed in catalogs and fashion magazines often do not identify the style, often just saying 'girl's dress'.
A-line
The term "A-line" is a modern term for a dress with a triangular silhouette, meaning narrow and fitted at the top and widening out from the bust or waist in a straight line to the hem. The style coukld also be used for men's coats, but the more common usage is girl's dresses. Another definition is a structured garment, which stands away from the body to form the sides of the letter A. The front of an A-line garments are commonly cut in one piece, with darts. Skirts of the dress often have no waistband, sometimes looking much like a smock. One of the dresses here is a good exmple (figure 1). The term is modern, adopted while the sctuasl style was in plasce for some time. The term was populsrized by couturier Christian Dior for his Spring 1955 collection. After World War II there was a revival of fasion and France was the center of this revival. Dior was a major figure. He organized each of hisd new collection around a single main idea and assignedf a name evoked that idea. He designed three closely related collections, based on the shapes of the letters H, A, and Y, which marked a decisive away from the traditional strongly accentuated waistline. Dior designed women's clothes. A-line dresses were actually more with girls' clothing.
Applique
Baby-doll
Balloon
Boho
Boho is short for bohemian and means a fashion inspired by the lifestyle of free spirits and hippies of the 1960s and 1970s or even the pre-Raphaelite women of the late- 19th century. This is notv so much a popular girl's style, lyhough teenagers mifgt sear biho dresses. They are characterized by long flowing or tiered skirts and dresses, peasant blouses, ethnic touches like tunics or wood jewelry, embroidery or embellishment with beading, fringed handbags, and jeweled or embellished flat sandals. The boho look is often layered and colorful. This is a look that motyhers tend cto diprive of for their little darlings, but as there sre now griwn-up hippo=ies and eveb grandmothers. iybis a look we omgtimes see.
Chifon
Defined Waistline
Most dress styles has defined waists. Some were accentuated with huge waistlies some times done as sashes. Most dresses had narrow waistbands, often part of the dress in the front, but separated at the back and tied in bows.
A new naturalness began to emerge in late 18th Century dresses for both children, young boys and girls, and women. Both litle boys and girls wore dresses and there were no stylistic differences differentuating boys and girls dresses. Dress styles had for centuries been created for elaborate rituals at royal courts. Dresses and hairstyle were extrodinarily orate and hugely expensive, a cost born by the common people. Empire refers Naspoleon's Frenchg Empitre . France despite the Revolution was still the arberter of European fashion. It was also aopular style in Britain and a featre of Regency fashion.
The hoop skirt dress is one of the most destinctive dress styles. Not all women wore hoopdresses even when they were theheughtbof fashion, we bekieve in the 1850s and 60s. The hoop was a fashion item and very impractical. They were worn with fashionable dresses. Women did not wear them for everyday where unless they were high society ladies that could afford sevants to do all their work. Women would certainly wear hoop skirts to paties. Working women were less likely to wear hoop dresses, especially occupations requiring unrestructed movement. Women were restrictedcin job opportunities at the time, but most Americans lived on farms and the hoop skirt was certainly not suitable for farm work. Cooks could not wear hoop skirts because of the danger of fabric catching fire. The fashion at the time was for full skirts. Women tried to achieve this by adding extra petticoats. This coukd become quite bulky. The hoop avoided this problem. With a hoop only two petticoats might be required. Hoops were shapped with boning a term derivedcfrom the whale bone (baleen) used, but oither materials might be used as well, including watch-spring steel, steel bands. or rattan for lower-cost hoops. One petticoat was worn underneath the hoop for modesty ake as hoops might rise up when the indivual sat down or bent over. The scond petticoat was worn over the hoop to hide the boning and provide a smooth line to the skirt. Actually the hoop dress was not an easy dress to wear. Women and girls in particulsar had to practice. Girls wre less likely than women to wear hoop dresses. They would bot have wirn them to school, but many girls did not go to school in the mid-19th century. Girls from affluent families might wear hoop skirts for special occassions. I'm not sure at what age a girl might begin wearing a hoop skirt. Yhe hoop skirt dresses fior girls were usually more restrained than those for women. While younger boys at the time commonly wore dresses, as far as we know, they did not wear hoop dresses.
Jacketed
Jumper
A jumper in America is what is known as gym slip in Britain. A kind of school uniform dress. In Americ there is non vassociation with uniform, but a populae style for schoolwear.
Mini
This is a term more associated with skirts and mean a very short lenght. There were, however, dresses with minm-skirts as well.
Here we have as wide range of dress syles inluding: cowgirl (American), dirdnl (German), hanbok (Korean), huipil (mexican), kimomno (Japanese), polonaise (Polish), qwuadrille (Caribbean), sari (India), vyshyvanka (Ukrainian), and many others. These are essebntislly folk styles. Masny of the European styles are very similar with common features. The European styles are basically what the peasantry was weating in the 18th and 19th century before the European countries became heavily urbanized. It was peasant styles that became a national look because royalty wore fashionable styles set in Paris and London. For the upper class there was no national look, this could only be found with the peasantry. As early as the late-19th century you see mothers dressing up girls in peasant dressesg as nostlgic look. We even see European royalty wearing peasant styles as a way of identifying with the common proplec and expressing a nagtional commitnment.
Multi-layer
Party
A psrt dress is just as described, a dress xsuitsvke ti be wirn to a party nd not a modern casual dress opzrty. A party dress could come in a wide variety if styles nd include both shiort asnd long hms. They asre often done in luxurious materials and highly decirative incliding lscde and nows, often with sadhes,espcislly g-for younger gtrls. Some ofr A-line, but mosdt have defined waists permitting sashes and bows at the back. Tutu features are popular.
Peasant
Pinafore
A pinafore dress is a girl's dress with pinafiore elements wirked into the styling of the dress. Wjile the pinafore was a utilitarian, protctive garment. Sone were highky stu=klized with decorastive trim nd ruffles.
Princess
The princess style dress design tends to be dresses closely fitted to the waistline and unbroken by a seam. This style was introduced in 1848 which seems a strange year for asbything related to royalty because it ushered in revolutions across Europe. It was at first little worn, but became popular in the ldess chaotic 1860s, at least in Europe. Princess gowns were made of fitted sections of material, worn over a crinoline and flared out at the hem, sometimes elabotarely so. The princess style never really disappeared. We see princess style dresses going in and out of style in the late-19th century and througout the 20th century.
