NEW - The Girl's Own Annual, November 1890

Delineator, 1890

"School of Photography, A. Flegeltaub Photo. Ballarat", ca. 1890.
(These two sitters - sisters? - wear clothes with fashionable elements from both the 1880s and the 1890s.)

NEW - The Young Ladies Journal, September 1891

"S.F. King, Williamson Street, Bendigo", ca. 1891
(This photograph of the early 1890s displays the same long waist, puffed sleeves, and a slight train to the skirt, as in the fashion drawings above and the fashion plate below)

NEW - The Girl's Own Annual,1891

Journal Des Demoiselles, 1892

"Turner & Drinkwater, Hull", ca. 1892-1893
(This young girl is not yet old enough to put her hair up, or her hems down. However she follows the fashionable line in the sleeves and bodice of her dress. By the middle of the decade the comparatively modest puffs here have become enormous balloon-shaped sleeves.)

"Keeping Photographer, Exeter", ca. 1892-1894
(The sitter is dressed in a very smart coat, with a fur collar.)

"E.A. Day & Co.", ca. 1893-1897
(This woman sends strangely mixed signals. By the 1890s only the conservative elderly or servants wore caps; yet the subject of this photograph is also dressed in the ultra-modern blouse and skirt outfit adopted by the "New Women" of the era. Perhaps she was an upper servant in a big house, or the matron of an institution? The sleeves and broad belt with shiny buckle puts this photograph around the middle of the decade.)

"A. Poulson, The People's Photographer ... Goulburn", ca. 1893-1897
(Borrowing men's fashions in the 1890s - in this case, a collar and tie.)

NEW - Photographs from The Cosmopolitan, 1894
(The pictures were part of a series called "The Relations of Photography to Art", and they illustrate fashionable evening dresses of the mid-1890s.)

"Special Atelieret, Kløbenhavn", ca. 1894-1896

Photograph, undated, uncaptioned, ca. 1894-1897
(This appears to be a photograph of a family of daughters at a bush picnic. The ages and costumes of the sitters range from that of a preadolescent child in her straight cotton frock at centre, to a grown woman in her elaborate dress down the front. A couple of the young women on the right of this photograph appear to have adopted mannish looking collars, ties and boaters. They are still both tightly corseted however - as is the girl on the left of the photograph. Tight lacing was fashionable in the 1890s, and large sleeves helped to emphasise tiny waists.)

"Mora - 83 Rundle Street Adelaide, and Port Adelaide", ca. 1895
(Seen here are fashionable sleeves of the 1890s at their most exaggerated. Broad shoulder tabs have been added to the dress to increase their effect.

Standard "Delineator", 1895

Le Bon Ton et Le Moniteur De La Mode, October 1896

"Except for the most small-waisted, naturally dumb-bell shaped females, the ladies never seemed at ease, or even if they were wearing their own clothes. For their dresses were always made too tight, and the bodices wrinkled laterally from the strain; and their stays showed in a sharp ledge across the middle of their backs. And in spite of whalebone they were apt to bulge below the waist in front; for, poor dears, they were but human after all, and they had to expand somewhere."

Gwen Raverat, Period Piece

NEW - Carson Pirie Monthly, 1896
(On the left, "New fancies in neckwear", and on the right, capes and coats. During the 1890s fasion emphasis was on the bodice and shoulders.)

Fashions from The Delineator, September 1898

"E. Squire, Hawera, N.Z.", ca. 1898
(The highly ornamental blouse was introduced in the 1890s, and remained a fashion feature through the Edwardian era. This example has lace inserts on the front of the bosom and down the sides of the sleeves. Because of the shape of the sleeves it is possible to date it to the late 1890s.)

"Adelaide Photo Co.", ca. 1898
(Because of the sleeves, once again, it is possible to date this photograph to the late 1890s. The dress looks too elaborate day wear - possibly it was designed for a garden party, a wedding, or to wear while making formal afternoon calls.)

Afternoon dress, 1898, reproduced for Those were the Days, the 150 Jubliee Collection, 1836-1986 (1986)
(And for reference - this dress, a reproduction of a 1898 original, was created as part of South Australia's 150 year Jubilee. Though the model is obviously not wearing the correct corsetry for the 1890s, the dress itself is almost identical to the example above. The original caption reads in part:

"This pale grey dress trimmed on the bodice with grey and pink taffeta frills, ruched grey chiffon and cream lace insertion ... The original dress had the name of the maker printed on the waist band: Madame Darsonval Robes et Manteux, 17 Rue Chenez, Paris. In this year the sleeves were a lot smaller and the skirt has a softer line."

Those were the Days, the 150 Jubilee Collection, 1836-1986

NEW - "J.B. & C.A. Comptom, Nov. 16th 1899" - taken at D.G. Thomas Photographic Studio, Wrexham.
(While the lounge suit the gentleman wears shows some elements of casualness and comfort, the clothes the lady wears look distinctly uncomfortable and restrictive. If you look you can see quite clearly the 'ledge' formed by the corset mentioned in Gwen Raverat's Period Piece.)

("Tuesday, 14 November 1899
... On Thursday I had slow old Teague and she altered that nice white serge skirt to fit me and put on a lovely flounce of white serge to make it a decent length, because it shrunk so in the washing. Rosie gave me the idea of how to cut it, and I stood over Teague while she carried out the directions. The result is that I have a perfectly new looking skirt, and do you remember that little old nun's veiling skirt of mine belonging to my confirmation dress? Well, it's now hopelessly small for me, so I cut it up and made it into a blouse. I finished it off with turquoise turned back velvet cuffs with lace over them, and then a little narrow band round the waist of turquoise velvet, and a lace scarf round the neck caught with my turquoise brooch. I can assure you that the tout ensemble was really sweet. Cream and turquoise is a lovely combination, and talking of combinations, mine are all in rags..."

Maisie: her life in letters from 1898 to 1902)

Photograph, ca. 1899-1900
(This young lady looks forward into a new century. Her clothes are fairly simple, having lost the exaggerated sleeves of the 1890s, and not yet gained the frills and fuss of the Edwardians.)