Browse Items (71 total)

L'Art de la Mode, August 1890  This French fashion plate, available through a New York publisher, is identified as a summer dress. Even though the weather might be warm, Victorian women were expected to dress in layers of under clothes, consisting of…

L'Art de la Mode, August 1890  This ensemble is labeled "Seaside Costume." Summering at resorts became popular for the growing middle class in the 1890s. Women bathed in bloomer-like outfits complete with overskirts, stockings, and shoes. For…

Petit Courrier des Dames, August 31, 1836 French magazines sometimes included menswear fashions. Depicted here are two gentlemen in the latest Parisian styles. The gentleman on the left illustrates a “Habit de Ville,” or “City Suit,” consisting of a…

Petit Courrier des Dames, probably late 1820s   The fashion depicted here is the frock coat, termed “redingote” in France. The redingote, or riding coat, originated in England in the eighteenth century as outerwear. In this image, it is worn with a…

Modes de Paris April 30, 1842 These men are dressed appropriately for Longchamps, which was part of a park in the forested area of Bois de Boulogne in 1842. When Napoleon III became emperor of France, the Bois de Boulogne was reconfigured and opened…

Modes Parisiennes 1846 The three men illustrate changes to the silhouette taking place in the 1840s. As women’s skirts became wider, men’s silhouettes followed. Trousers became fuller, shoulders sloped, and chests swelled out like a pigeon’s. To…

Full Dress for June 1799This fashion plate for the June 1799 issue of The Lady’s Monthly Museum is labeled “full dress”. It shows two dresses in the Neoclassical style. The 1790s was a transitional period for fashion. The chemise a la reine, first…

Fashionable Undress for July 1799This fashion plate is a single page that once belonged to a bound volume of materials. Originally printed in The Lady’s Monthly Museum, a periodical published in London, England from 1798 to1832, this image “showed…

Morning Dress for October 1799Mary C. Whitlock, former department chair and founder of URI’s Historic Textile and Costume Collection, found many loose fashion plates in antique shops around Massachusetts and donated them to URI’s collection. These…