The highly-acclaimed English artist, William Powell Frith (1819-1909), captures the differences in clothes and costumes between the classes in 1840’s Victorian Britain in his painting ‘Poverty and Wealth’ – the ragged poor are pale, dark, scruffy imitations of the rich.   In another great piece of art, ‘Ramsgate Sands’ (1852-54), Frith brings together a multitude of characters in a gay scene: a holiday at the fashionable Kent seaside resort where the girls are dressed in replicas of adult clothes –  bonnets and short coats over silk or satin crinoline dresses.

It was at the beginning of Victorian Britain, with the invention of chemical dyes, that cloth was available in very bright or deep colours.  Dress shops were now able to draw-in their customers, attracted by the alluring colour, tartans and stripes.
Victorian Wedding dresses were usually  high necked with long sleeves. A bride was married in any colour. This style dress is also a popular choice today.

The hour-glass silhouette of wide skirt, wasp waist and exaggerated bust of the 1840’s was replaced by the tea-cosy silhouette.  Both styles of dress were in expensive silk and satin worn both day and night, along with silk damask, brocade, watered silk and shot taffeta.  Dresses made from crepe-de-chine, gauze, muslin, barege and tarlatan were modish as ball gowns and in the summer months because of the extreme lightness of the material.  Regrettably, as today there was much waste in the fashion industry, for instance, those dancing and summer dresses of exquisitely light fabric had only a limited life because with a loss of freshness inevitably came a loss of elegance.

The Chanel brand is today marketed as fashion for the perfectionist and passionate woman. Apparently, owning a fake item from the Chanel brand, such as a handbag or jacket or even bridal gown, is now so common that women wish for the real thing.
In her life-time, Coco Chanel (1883-1971) is alleged to have run her company with strict authority but it was her unconventional personal life-style that served to keep Chanel in the public eye.
Her legacy is most often associated with the Chanel suit, comprising a collarless jacket and straight skirt, originally in tweed, to be worn with a string of pearls. She branched into many different areas – including lingerie and was known for her popular range of bridal lingerie in the 1930s. An interesting phenomenon is that today the Chanel suit is often the chosen outfit for court appearances of female celebrities, such as model Jerry Hall, Naomi Campbell and Paris Hilton.

Other significant contributions to women’s fashions have been jersey dresses, cardigan suits, sailor jackets, jumpers and trousers in soft jersey fabrics. Skirts made of silk were also her trademark, worn with a jersey sweater and long cardigan, complete with a cloche hat. Today her clothes are worn with elegant and opulent costume jewellery.
As a fashion designer of the 20’s and 30’s, Coco Chanel was approached to design for movie film stars, but the nature of fashion is one of constant flux so created looks were often out-of-date by the time the film came out.