Facts about the 1900s Fashion

1900 to 1910 Fashion

The 1900s is when technology started developing slowly so fashion in the 1900s was also developing. But it mostly remained the same continuing the fashion followed in the previous decade. The period of the 1900s is known as ‘the age of hourglass’. The 1900’s fashion was known for its hourglass figure. This is when the fashion game started to level up.

1900 Women’s Fashion

• In this era, people started to obsess over the hourglass figure, which is basically a small waist, wide hips, bigger chests and butt. It was a typical changeover in fashion from the Victorian period to the Edwardian period which was inspired by the lifestyle of Britain’s King Edward vii. Samuel Lynn Hynes, an American Author described the Edwardian era as a “leisure time when women wore picture hats A.K.A Gainsborough hat and did not vote”.
• The ideal body of the 1900s was long neck, big bust and butt, and tiny waist. They achieved the shape with the help of a corset, it was considered extremely important to wear a corset that time and a dress without a corset was considered improper. The corsets they wore literally squeezing the waist making it appear slimmer and the bust and butt larger. And all the women wanted to wear it because they wanted their body to have the hour-glass figure which was the only factor that defined one’s beauty at that time.
• The 1900 women’s fashion was almost all about curves, people loved curves that they designed almost everything including dresses that made women look curvy. The obsession went overboard and in order to achieve the shape women started practicing awkward habits such as ingesting tapeworms, yes you heard it right. Tapeworms were considered to eat most of the food you take leaving your waist to look smaller and thinner.
• Once they started realizing how horrible this kind of fashion was, there was a shift in fashion and again people started obsessing over something called “The pigeon breast” and “S-shape” corset. They started wearing a type of corset called “the safety corset” but it was not as safe as they claimed. This type of corset was designed to push your breasts forwards and hips backward not providing much pressure on the waist area. This projected an S-shape in the figure.
• There were no restrictions on clothes as they wore the same kind of outfits wherever they went even to parks, beaches, etc. Later, at some point, people started wearing something called ‘dusters’ in order to protect their outfit from dust while traveling and it was very popular in those days.
• The shirtwaist was one of the other most common and famous outfits worn by women in the 1900s. It was mostly made of soft and sensible material and was paired with a skirt. These shirtwaists were mostly white in color.
• In the 1900s fashion, the hairstyles of women were greatly inspired by ‘The Gibson Girl’ an illustration invented by Charles Dana Gibson. She was considered the epitome of feminine ideal and wore Cottage loaf hairdo which was basically a bun that inspired many women to follow the hairstyle. Look at some of the current trendiest hairstyles!
• In the early 1900s fashion, people wore hats that were huge and heavy such as the cartwheel hat which was very famous. Most of the hats that were designed in the 1900s were extremely wide and large. The 1900 women’s fashion was all about embellishments, laces, embroideries, bows, feathers, etc. The more stuff you had on your hats and dresses the more high class and modern you were considered.

Men’s Fashion

Men’s fashion in the 1900s was slow compared to women’s fashion and it moreover was the same as the 1890s long, lean silhouettes. A frock coat is a men’s formal wear which is characterized by a knee-length skirt and was popular during the Victorian period and later in the 1900s, it was replaced with a sack coat which was mostly worn for informal occasions. Men also preferred wearing dinner jackets during family dinner or dinners at the men’s clubs. The outfit is usually worn with a white shirt and dark tie. During formal meetings, formal dress shirts were preferred in which the collars are usually stiffened and shirts were sometimes decorated with shirt studs.  Just like women in the 1900s men also wore hats for almost every occasion as it was considered fashionable and was mostly preferred by upper-classmen. Beards and moustaches were less pointed. The hairstyles were always short. They chose shoes that were mostly above the ankle and black, brown, or grey were the dominant colors.

Children’s Fashion

In the 1900s most children were dressed up like adults except they were comparatively simpler. Young girls wore knee-length dresses that were designed with laces and embroideries all over. For more informal occasions, they wore pinafores with blouses. Additionally, they wore shoes with stockings, boots, gloves, etc. They normally had curly wavy hair decorated with lots of ribbons. Boys, on the other hand, followed almost a similar fashion of wearing stocking and shoes but with Russian blouses along with shorts or knickers. Sailor suits and tunics were also famous and worn by almost all the young boys. Both boys and girls wore light-colored dresses as they indicated the wealth of their families.