European Women's Wear 1870–1900
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Glasgow Museums has collection of approximately 180 women's wear main garments, including dresses, blouses, bodices and skirts, dating from 1870 to 1900.
This group covers the mid-to-late Victorian period covering the second half of the reign of Queen Victoria (1819–1901). It includes examples of day and evening wear, including a large number of white and best day wedding dresses as well as a few mourning dresses. Alongside Glasgow and west of Scotland dressmakers, several items were made by department stores in Glasgow, including David Kemp & Son, Fraser & Son, Neilson Shaw MacGregor, Simpson Hunter & Young and Stewart & McDonald. There are also key dresses by Merlot-Larchevêque, a Parisian couturier, and Madame Hayward, a London court dressmaker.
Women's fashion during the late 1800s was led by Parisian couturiers, such as Charles Frederick Worth (1825–95). He established his fashion house on the rue de la Paix and introduced the use of models to show-off his latest designs. Where Paris led, major cities followed. In London court dressmakers flourished and across the country department stores emerged that offered the latest 'Parisian' fashions. Fashions changed rapidly with the soft 1870s bustle evolving into the Princessline with its trailing skirts. Increased use of tailoring lead to the exaggerated, almost upholstered, bustle of the mid-1880s. A decade later large leg-of-mutton sleeves were off-set with a triangular, gored skirt. The introduction of secretarial work and further education for women saw a rise in ready-to-wear co-ordinates, such as blouses and skirts, as epitomized by the New Woman.
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