Our society has different fashion trends.  Perhaps you still have something in your closet that was fashionable ten years ago.  Or your grandmother wears skirts that she says were all the rage back in her day.  Our fashion changes and a lot of people keep up with it.  Fashion of the 19th century changed, too.  Most people today, however, do not realize that the 1800’s wasn’t all Victorian fashion.  Queen Victoria did not come to the throne until 1837.  So what came before that?  The Regency time period covered the time period between 1811 and the 1820s when George, Prince of Wales, ruled as regent for his father King George III.  Here we will briefly cover the differences and similarities between Victorian and Regency fashion of the 19th century. 

Dress fashions were always changing in both time periods.  The Victorian time period took place between 1830 and 1901.  Fashion had been through many changes up to this point.  The heavy dresses of the Georgian era had been replaced by the lighter dresses of the Regency era.  The fabric was usually fine white lawn, muslin, or batiste.  The plain dresses started to take on Grecian, Roman, and eventually Egyptian styles.  During the Victorian era, a wider range of materials was used and there was more of a variety of styles of dresses.  In 1811, a Gothic style emerged and the bodice of Regency dresses gained more shaping and were not cut so tight.  This style lasted until Queen Victoria’s succession.  Around 1845 of the Victorian era, the boned bodice appeared, its shape in a V.  This bodice restricted arm movement.  Starting in 1808, the English began to adopt the French waistline style.  Up until 1825, the waistline rose and fell.  It would often be as high as under the bosom, and sometimes as low as around the hips.  During the Victorian era, the waistline was rarely ever seen so high and usually stayed about waist level.  Starting in the early 1800’s and going through the Victorian era, light jackets called pelisses were worn.  They were long-sleeved and were cut either below the bodice or down to the knees.  Also, by 1820, all women were wearing corsets, and that lasted all the way through the Victorian age and into the Edwardian age.  During the Victorian era, a lot of corsets lost their shoulder straps because evening dresses started to show the shoulder.  After 1840, a new style of corset was made and it included seven to thirteen separate pieces.  Bustles never became fashionable during the Regency era, but during parts of the Victorian era they were.  They first became in fashion between 1870 and 1875, then again from 1883 to 1892.  Over those time periods there were several different styles of bustle.  One in 1883 had a straw-filled cushion sewn into the skirt with a series of steel half hoops inserted lining down to the ground.  This made the skirt throw out horizontally from the waist level, making women appear to have the hind legs of a horse.  By 1893, the bustle had shrunk in size to just a pad. 

Hats and hairstyles were just as important as the dresses in both Regency and Victorian eras.  Hair styles changed, just like dress styles.  By the Regency era, powdered wigs had disappeared.  Even men started to wear their hair cut short without wigs.  During the Regency era, hair was modeled to look like ancient Greek and Roman styles.  The hair was most often put into buns and adorned with combs, diadems, and ribbons.  Putting flowers in one’s hair became popular during Victorian times.  One of the most popular Victorian styles was the ‘Apollo Knot’.  The ‘Modonna’ was where the hair was parted and built up with ringlets at crown and sides.  Also, in the 1870s it became acceptable to let the hair hang loose at the back of the head.  Girls of the Regency era often curled the hair in front to crown their face.  In 1890, the Gibson Girl style became popular with the younger generation.  This style was a loosely pulled bun on top of the head.  During Regency times, hair was parted in the shapes of T, V, Y, and U’s.  During Victorian times, it became popular to part hair in the middle.  Crimping also became popular in 1872, and in the 1880s fake hairpieces started to be added to help give hairdos their desired look.  Although most women during the Regency era did their own hair, it became popular in Victorian times to have a personal hairdresser.  As for hats, one could find a wide range of them during the Regency era.  The most popular were caps, bonnets, and turbans, which were worn in the evening.  In 1800, caps were worn by older women; but by the 1820’s, they were popular with younger girls as well.  By 1815 the crown of the bonnet was very large.  These hats however were replaced by lavishly trimmed bonnets in the Victorian era, which stayed in fashion until 1890. 

Just like today, Victorian and Regency women accessorized.  They may not have had purses full of makeup, nail files, and wallets, but they did have what they considered necessities.  Reticule handbags became popular in the late 1790’s and were the desired type of purse throughout Regency and Victorian times.  Cameo brooches became popular during Regency times and stayed popular up through Edwardian times in the early 1890s.  Some women are even seen wearing them today.  They were carved from stone or ivory but most of the time from porcelain.  During Victorian times they would often be attached to a black velvet choker around the neck.  Jewelry was not very popular during the Regency era.  Dainty necklaces were worn, but it was in Victorian times that jewelry was seen more and more on women.  Women started to rebel when they saw the machine-made jewelry that was being offered.  Many women started to wear no jewelry or only that made by craftsmen.  Pearls were favored but were very expensive.  Then, in the 1890s, Kokichi Mikomo of Japan produced an inexpensive, accepted “pearl” by placing a bead into an oyster.  The oyster would put a pearly coat over the bead.  Gloves were worn by women in both eras.  Long elbow gloves were worn in the evening and short gloves that matched the dress were worn in public in the day.  The cashmere shawl was also worn in both eras.  They were over-wraps that were used to keep the wearer warm and also add an air of elegance to the outfit.  In Regency times, flat or low-heeled pumps were the rage for about forty years in Britain.