Category: 1850-1859
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1855 – English Blue and White Print Day Dress
This crinoline-style day dress from 1855 combines decorative elements such as fringe and bold patterns and reflects the rise of voluminous tiered garments, improved cloth printing, and luxurious colors and embellishments utilized during the 1850s.
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1855 – Black Taffeta Day Dress with Rose and White Stripes
This intricate 1855 day dress includes many fashionable elements of the time period, including beautiful silk fringe trimming and stripe designs.
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1856 – Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Madame Moitessier
In Ingres’s 1856 portrait, Madame Moitessier wears a fashionable off-the-shoulder dress with a bertha collar trimmed with tassels. The evening dress reflects her elegant taste and features the essential elements of 1850s fashion–from its floral silk brocade fabric to its Renaissance-revival jewelry.
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1855 – Franz-Xaver Winterhalter, The Empress Eugénie Surrounded by her Ladies-in-Waiting
Well-known in the 19th century for his skill at portraiture, Wintherhalter created iconic mannered poses and captured ravishingly elegant dresses, like those in this portrait of the Empress Eugénie and her ladies in waiting, who dress in the most fashionable styles of day.
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1859 – Gold silk day dress with floral brocade
While the silhouette of this day dress, its floral brocade, and its use of fringe were fashionable for 1859, its choice of gold silk fabric and naturalistic coloring for the flowers was less so.
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