All posts tagged: 1850s

A thoroughly calculated wedding: Napoleon III and Eugenie

One of the things that studying royal weddings teaches you (very quickly!) is that romance often had very little to do with marriage, even among those monarchs who could choose their own spouse, and who claimed to marry for romance. The best example of this is the “romance” and marriage of Napoleon III and Eugenie de Montijo. Napoleon III was a notorious womaniser, and Eugenie was a notorious virgin – notorious for such because she refused to enter into affairs for reasons that were more strategically based than morally based. Eugenie and Napoleon first met in the early 1850s when he was president of France. The Spanish Eugenie was in Paris on a husband-hunting tour of Europe, and was the toast of the town for her beauty and grace. Naturally, Napoleon was intrigued, and began to pursue Eugenie, to no avail. One didn’t catch a husband by becoming the mistress of the President of France. Even once Napoleon staged a coup and became Emperor, Eugenie was not swayed. By all accounts the young Eugenie …

Where are the 1850s corsets?

Published by The Dreamstress

I’ve been assembling an informal catalogue of extent undergarments for my reference, and I have noticed something odd. I can’t find a single representation of an 1850s corset in a reputable online collection! OK, that’s not entirely true. There is one. At the Met. But it looks like this: What the heck is that!?!? It doesn’t look like any other corset, anywhere, of any period. It’s got some 1830s-40s elements (the bust insets), but otherwise it looks like a weird variant of a 1790s corset, with some stuff never seen on any other corset before or after, like the folk embroidery. It’s interesting, for sure, but definitely a fashion anomaly. So where are the 1850s corsets? You know, the ones normal people wore? The ones advertised in fashion magazines? The ones made by professional corset makers? The ones that (presumably), would transition between the longer, straped, corsets of the 1830s/40s, and the strapless, short corsets of the 1860s. Is there some odd reason that no 1850s corsets survived? Or have museum’s dated their corsets …

Early Worth gowns

Published by The Dreamstress

I know everyone wants to hear about the talk and see pictures, but that won’t happen yet for three reasons 1) I’m exhausted, 2) I hardly took any, so have to wait to get them from other people and 3) I’ve been asked to do a last minute talk on Sat and it gives me an excuse to pull out a few dresses I haven’t shown in a long time, so I’m frantic with that. So, in lieu of a Pompeii to Paris post, here is a pretty eye candy post in response to a readers question about early Worth gowns. There aren’t a lot of extent Worth gowns from before 1870 around, but the ones that are are fascinating glimpses into his aesthetic development, as he became more adventurous with colours and trim. Here are the early Worth gowns I can find images of: From the Metropolitan Museum of Art: From the Chicago History Museum From the Museo de la Moda: From the FIDM Museum: From the Royal Ontario Museum: More dresses were on …