View from Upper Snowden Gallery
Various styles of Artistic Reform dress.
Reforming
Fashion, 1850-1914
Politics,
Health, and Art
REFORMING
FASHION -
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ARTISTIC DRESSIn order to make visible the damaging effects of the corset many authors of dress reform literature showed the statue of Venus de Milo, the epitome of natural beauty, contrasted with the distorted body of a corseted woman. However, it was the proponents of artistic dress who most heartily adhered to classical ideals of beauty reflected in the Venus statue. They applied the principles of art, upon which these ideals were founded, to dress. For them the artificiality of fashionable dress "the corset, crinoline, bustle, and other disguising elements of fashion" went against nature and thus destroyed the beauty of a woman’s natural form. Among the earliest aesthetic dress reformers were those associated with the English Pre-Raphaelite painters. As the Pre-Raphaelites and their devotees gained recognition in the 1860s and 1870s, the public had opportunity to see historic and aesthetic dress in paintings and on women who attended exhibitions at the Royal Academy and the Grosvenor Gallery in London. Many of the fabrics for artistic dress were supplied by Liberty’s, the shop on Regent Street which had been established in 1875 by Arthur Lasenby Liberty as the East India Shop. Specializing in the silks most suitable to clinging robes and draperies worn by the artistic community, Liberty’s introduced delicate pastel tints which they called 'Art Colors' to dye imported silks. In 1884 Arthur Lasenby Liberty asked reformer Edward Godwin to direct the dress department in the Liberty store, making artistic dresses readily available. In its catalogs the Liberty Company offered artistic dresses which were modified to follow the conventions of modern life, but shared design elements with classical Greek clothing as reinterpreted during the Empire and Renaissance periods. The Liberty gowns were given appropriate names such as "Jacqueline", a velvet and silk crepe gown fashioned after a French fifteenth-century gown for indoor use, or "Josephine", an Empire-style (high-waisted) evening dress and they worked well with Liberty’s soft and very drapable fabrics. Liberty gowns were well publicized and available in their own Paris shop and other stores throughout Europe as well as New York. |
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ARTISTIC DRESS IN GERMANY AND AUSTRIAReformers in the British Arts and Crafts movement greatly influenced artists, architects, and designers in Germany and Austria where, not surprisingly, the modern design movement of the 1890s and early 1900s included artistic reform of women’s dress. Henry van de Velde, who advanced the art nouveau style, also supported artistic reform in women’s dress throughout the continent, especially in Germany. Not only did he write about reform dress, but he designed dresses as well. In support of a new artistic dress, Van de Velde observed that architects had finally realized that women’s dress must correspond with modern interior design and architecture as a new decorative idea that immediately makes it "a piece of art." He further suggested that clothing should express a women’s individuality, the exception being street wear, which would be dictated by place or appropriateness; clothing should be fit to purpose and adapt to private, general, or ceremonial spheres. In April 1900, a successful exhibition in Krefeld, Germany, which included Van de Velde’s artistic dress designs generated exhibitions of artist-designed reform dress in other cities as well, including Dresden. Leipzig, Wiesbaden and Berlin. The Wiener Werkstatte director, Koloman Moser, created reform styles for his wife that were high-waisted and full. Anna Muthesius also preferred the full, high waist style. Muthesius was an opera star and author of a book on dress reform, The Personal Dress of Women (1903). Reform styles promoted in the Austrian fashion magazine, Wiener Mode, in 1903 included the princess and Empire style, as well as full gowns with a high waist, similar to a "Mother Hubbard" style. They could be for weddings, tea, society, or house work. |
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ARTISTIC DRESS IN AMERICAAesthetic dress in America was greatly influenced by the British aesthetic movement. Ideas regarding artistic styles were rapidly dispersed through various print media. Rather than being solely confined to elite circles of artists, artistic dress appeared to have a middle-class following. Indeed, American magazines did not miss the opportunity to report an aesthetic dress. An 1878 issue of the American Agriculturist observed that the aim of the Pre-Raphaelite style was to "have a thick waist", like the Venus de Medici and Venus of Milo. Furthermore, it reported that artists declared tight waists unartistic and vulgar because the natural beauty of the human figure is lost through the destruction of its healthy proportions. Annie Jenness Miller, publisher of Dress, the Jenness Miller Magazine (1887-1898), was an outspoken advocate of artistic reform in women’s dress, stressing the need to adapt artistic principles to life and to dress in order to achieve beauty through simplicity, unity, utility, and harmony. The magazine frequently featured examples of artistic dress, patterns for which were available for purchase from the Jenness-Miller Publishing Company. Outside of artistic circles, the artistic reform styles most acceptable to fashionable American women were wrappers, or house gowns, especially the more formal version, the tea gown, which gained popularity in the 1870s. Taking the lead of the British, Americans designed tea gowns in a vaguely medieval or classical style that appeared to be loose fitting. Etiquette demanded that they be worn only in the home where they were appropriate when entertaining close friends. However, as noted in the Jenness Miller Magazine, women of the 1890s frequently wore tea gowns in public, especially at summer resorts. - Patricia A. Cunningham, PhD |
