HISTORICAL APPAREL WORN

Historical Apparel Worn

Historical Apparel Worn

Mid-19th century American women in the countryside and in the cities were eager to learn of fashion trends. European, especially French, style dominated fashion. One of the most popular features of women's magazines was fashion plates, illustrations of the latest styles of clothing. Some of the most popular magazines of the mid-19th century, like Godey's Lady's Book, Harper's Bazaar, and Frank Leslie's Gazette of Fashion, focused most if not all of their attention on fashion. Despite the great popularity of these publications, the extent to which these fashion dictates were followed in 19th-century America depended largely on economics and geography (Fischer, 2001).

In the 19th century men's fashions, which received less public notice or press attention than women's fashions did, underwent a significant change. In earlier eras, fashionable men's clothing was as showy and decorative as women's, but by the mid-19th century, men's fashions had settled into a more staid and somber appearance. The standard costume for America's gentlemen from the 1850s through the 1860s included a redingote or frock coat (long, tailored jackets with wide, sometimes rolled lapels, and flared hems), usually worn over a fitted vest. Trousers were worn long and over boots. By the 1870s the big transformation in men's clothing was the rise in popularity of the sack coat, a less-fitted option to the tailored lines of the redingote and frock coat for the "modern man." But tailored or not, not all men wore the typical gentleman's outfit. Slaves, as well as working men in American cities and farms, had costumes more appropriate to the daily rigors of butchering, manufacturing, blacksmithing, and plowing —coarser, more hard-wearing fabrics, bibbed trousers, and loose shirts were more conducive to their daily labors.

Also, the westward movement of American settlers and entrepreneurs brought to men's ...