Every once in a while fashion changes really, really fast. The 1820s was one such decade. It began with women wearing the high-waisted and narrow-skirted dresses that had been fashionable for nearly a quarter of a century and ended with them wearing outfits like this:
This fashion plate from 1830 illustrates the sort of lively and flamboyant clothes that were fashionable before the demure modes of the early Victorians. The two most noticeable details of the model's costume are her exaggerated hat and her exaggerated ("leg o' mutton") sleeves. The sleeves, of course, couldn't retain their shapes on their own. Women would either have their sleeves lined with some heavy material such as buckram or horsehair ("crin") or would wear separate sleeve supports underneath. Leg o' mutton sleeves would become fashionable again in the 1890s
Hats would also fall out of fashion by the end of the decade with bonnets becoming the preferred type of feminine headgear. Hats would make a tentative comeback in the 1860s, but it wasn't until the early twentieth century that large and extravagantly decorated hats like this would become popular again.
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