For survey 5, the topic for s is fashion, so we decided to research on women’s clothing around 1850.

for women, There are two pieces to build up dresses, which are extremely tight v-shaped corsets and the large bell-shaped skirts. these two contrasting cloth divide a woman’s waist into two completely different parts.

The Swing, Jean-Honoré Fragonard

Corsets are usually supported with stiff materials, leather is the most popular material. if u want a high-end Corset, using whale bones as supports will be the right choice for you. the purpose of using corsets is to flattening the top half of a woman’s body as much as possible and keeping it straight. In addition, other than the supporting skeleton that built inside of the Corsets, the rest of the parts are mostly made with rough fabrics, such as linen.

women’s corsets in 18th century

The opposite of tight corsets is the exaggerated dresses. From the waist down, the skirts open up in an umbrella shape with hoop skirts and hip pads. Guess what? all those things under the dress are just to showing off woman’s sexuality.

the hoop skirt