The Relation of Fashion and Social Position of Women in Victorian era ; English Women′s Costume

빅토리아 시대 여성의상에 나타난 사회상에 대한 연구(영국 여성의상을 중심으로)

The nineteenth century was a watershed - the extreme point of difference in the style of fashion dress and in the roles men and women played in society. This conviction has its roots in the socioeconomic changes of the 19th century and the industrial revolution, and the new working bourgeoisie' value, fashion and taste were on the rise. The bourgeois, who was not considered as having infallible taste, was looking for its own style, while on the other hand it was competing with the nobility. Therefore bourgeois' own etiquette and taste were appeared. There was ideals which the middle classes were hungry for, and it became the basis of judging an individual. The bourgeois tried to get social approval and used fashion was the mean of it. Bourgeois women fashion has a funtion as a complete symbol of the status, wealth and leisure in a patriachal society. Not only the Bourgeois tried to control themselves and to achieve the virtue of moderation, chastity and obedience by the restrictive costume, but also extravagant and cumbersome dresses has a kind of compensative funtion against a sober and simple men's dress. There was a reformative movement to break out of the legal, economic and social restrictions within the confines of respectable Victorian Society. The process of reform was long and slow for not only did laws be changed but the barriers of prejudice in a society convinced of man s mental and physical superiority had to be overcome. But even though there were many difficulties, a small number of progressive women challenged the social recognition and role of women and decisively refused the restrictive and ostentative fashion. Victorian costume was also criticized in the medical and aesthetic aspect for their impracticality. As a result, more funtional and practical women's clothes has appeared, but it have resulted in a peculiar hybrid of traditional female attire in combination with the more uncomfortable aspects of men's clothes. However it was becoming an essential look for new women who were the equals of men and wanted to be treated as such.