Still Travelling Throughout History: A Necessary Stop At The XIXth Century
17-09-2008
If the political French court environment and the arosen Rococo style where the predominant causes of the fashion structure of the time, The French revolution prompted a dramatic change in the architectural construction of the fashion industry. The excentricity, exuberant and refined silks were abandoned , as well as the return to nature brought by the neoclassicist wave, and were suddenly replaced by the darkness and general shadows that portrayed the final days of the century.
However, different styles intermingled during the period, and various international events gave way to a complicated fashion panorama that with its continuous changes sketched a dynamic cycle in terms of fashion garments and styles.
Definitely the Revolution(1789) played a major role in the modern citizen of the following century by adopting for the first time fashion for ideological and political purposes. Fashion was expanded and appropriated by the lower classes and new styles were born as anti-revolutionary propaganda icons.
Nevertheless, two important facts were to characterized the evolution of fashion throughout the XIXth century. Whereas, political revolutions were the leading factors in France. Modernisation was brought to England due to the Industrial revolution, which implied not only a more extended range of products and a growing demand, but also a consequent improvement in the garments production chain and its distribution. The openings of the Japanism trade borders in the middle century also put an end to years of isolation, and political and economical bans to imports, allowing and facilitating the floods of garments and inspirations between the West and the East.
In general, it can be established that during the first years, Lyons played a superior role as a material and luxury product supplier and that Napoleon and its successors adopted a protective attitude towards the French fashion potential .In order to illustrate the revolutionist atmosphere and symbolize the authority of the French court , all these relevant political figures made possible the flourishing arts and lifestyle of what has been called the Empire Style, which was soon settled and adopted by all European Courts.
Nevertheless, from 1820 onwards fashion experienced a return to natural, imaginative and exotic worlds shaping a more melancholic, delicate and bell-shaped woman figure that required again the previous eras' corset and that is very well represented by the corresponding Romantic artists.
The following years where characterized by the aim of pursuing women´s modesty with the help of textiles and materials such as crinoline and cone shaped skirts and important figures such as Ingres, Empress Eugène , C.F Worth and British Queen Victoria deserve an honoured mention in this sense.
Although the mechanizations of the different printing, dyeing and sewing techniques were starting to make possible the "ready made" clothing in France and America at that time, the origins of the so admired French Haute Couture were shaped simultaneously and especially owned to Worth's work, who expanded its English patronage and techniques to Paris . He has fairly gained its reputation of being the first couturier to combine simple and lights textiles and shapes with an enormous creativity impulse leading to fashion garments being basically catered as art pieces. The fashion seasonal cycle predominant now a days, was also introduced by him as a start point.
The final years of the century were mainly influenced by the the S-shaped feminine style of the belle époque period and the subsequent blooming of sports and leisure activities , as well as the predominant desire to travel..They liberated , once again, women´s sense of clothing , even allowing the acceptance of informal and more masculine inspired style that could be considered the forerunners of the 20th century fashion style.
But those of course, will be analysed in the following article, with the aim of proving once again, how the structure and reasons behind the current fashion scenario take the roots of the previous eras.
To be continuous…………
By A.H
LinkINg: http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/wrth/hd_wrth.htm
