"Seasonable Clothing and How It Should Be Made" (Girl's Own Annual March 1882)

 Time to dip into my copies of The Girl's Own Annual again.

First up is "the new petticoat".  Readers familiar with the Victorian era will recognise it as the dawn of the "second bustle era".  For the moment, back fullness is achieved by sewing flounces onto a  petticoat; as the decade progresses more substantial bustles will take its place.

The illustration below is of three up-to-the-minute fashions for March 1882, comprising of (from left to right) a walking costume, a dress made of black satin and silk trimmed with black Spanish lace, and a princesse costume with puffy sleeves and a striped scarf.  The Girl's Own Paper advised that a "drapery at the back" could be substituted for the train worn by the second figure.

This column had much to say on the topic of dress reform, which apparently had been a hot topic in the press recently.  Firstly they strike a patriotic note:

Having read thus far, I paused to think the subject over, and was not long in coming to the conclusion that, not only do English women make use of the woollen fabrics of their own country, but they have been singularly happy originating fashions where they can be used.  The waterproof first, and the ulster afterwards, bear witness to this fact, and in both of these garments the Englishwoman has set the fashion to the world.  For their manufacture no cloth but the English is good, and no makers are so highly thought of.  The same is the case with regard to tailor-made jackets and dresses, and the much maligned Englishwoman was undoubted the original inventor of the famous "Jersey", which gave employment and brought wealth to so many within the last few years.

  

However, they also advise English women to take a leaf out of the Americans' book:

As to the desire for "perpetual change," of which we all stand accused, I think in this perhaps we have something to learn from the Americans, who are singularly conservative in many ways; and when a shape or material has been found to be really good, they use it for years, without ever changing. 

For the rest, The Girl's Own Paper suggest that the dress reform measures that are really needed are the abolition of tight-lacing and the simplification of underwear.  All of which would eventuate in time, but not as the reformers imagined it!