Good morning everyone,

Heading into autumn/winter reminds me that I slightly regret not getting to see what dumb fashion ideas would have been big this year if we'd been going out and seeing each other. WHAT ABOUT THE SLEEVES. If you're missing this too, how about we look at some fashion through the ages together and imagine what might have been.

Let's start with a primer. I really like this compilation of fashion sketches between 1784 and 1970. Some amazing stuff here. I like how 1926 and 1927 have clearly just met but are really enjoying each other's company:

https://mymodernmet.com/womens-fashion-history/

I'd also forgotten until I looked at these pictures that tuberculosis was extremely trendy in the nineteenth century. Being really thin and pale and wafty, basically. Check out 1809 at the above link for an example, and here's a history of that:

“Between 1780 and 1850, there is an increasing aestheticization of tuberculosis that becomes entwined with feminine beauty,” says Carolyn Day, an assistant professor of history at Furman University in South Carolina and author of the forthcoming book Consumptive Chic: A History of Fashion, Beauty and Disease, which explores how tuberculosis impacted early 19th century British fashion and perceptions of beauty.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/how-tuberculosis-shaped-victorian-fashion-180959029/

Finally, here's what I think (fashion historians please correct me) is universally hailed as the silliest fashion of the last several centuries; it's bustles. Maybe bustles would have been back in fashion this year! We can only guess. Anyway, here's what bustles were made of. I am not sure how women could have sat down in these circumstances:

 The slim dresses that lasted until 1883 were swiftly replaced with a totally new style in 1883 when in the UK the bustle reappeared.  It had been introduced in Paris 3 years earlier, but had failed to take off. This was a new bustle in a much more exaggerated shape.  The bustle consisted of a straw filled cushion sewn into the skirt with a series of steel half hoops inserted in the skirt lining down to the ground.  This had the effect of throwing the skirt out almost horizontally from waist level behind. Women appeared to have the hind legs of a horse.

https://www.fashion-era.com/bustles.htm

Love,

Alex.