Let There Be Trim! on antique clothing

Let There Be Trim!

       "To get too much upon a garment is impossible," one fashion correspondent wrote of trimmings in Butterick's Metropolitan magazine in the 1870s. Indeed, the Victorian era was epitomized by a simple motto: If a little is good, more is better...And Victorian fashions were by no means immune to this theory.
       The dresses of Victorian women were rarely plain; even women of little means trimmed their dresses in some fashion. She might not wear the laces, abundant ruffles or flounces, feathers, flowers, fringe, jet, glass beadings, pom-poms, ribbons, bows, fur, decorative buttons, or massive amounts of embroidery, but she surely could not be without piping, bias bindings, a contrasting border or two, stenciling, and other basics of Victorian trim.
       Still, by the time the sewing machine was widely used in American homes (in the 1850s), the world of fashionable trim was far more democratic than it had been in the past. Even in a tight budget, any scrap bit of fabric or lace from mother's old bonnet could now be added to a plain dress without spending innumerable hours (and dressmaker's fees) that needed to be used elsewhere.
       In 1846, when Elias Howe perfected the original 1830 invention, the sewing machine made 250 stitches per minute. (Humans sew about 30 stitches per minute by hand.) In 1850, when Isaac Singer patented a less expensive design, the machine cost only $100--a third of the price of Howe's, but still a tidy sum. Nonetheless, along with the wide-spread use of the time-saving machine came the wide-spread use of trims, and by the 1870s, trimmings were used in profusion. "What a mixing of flounces, or flat plaits, with fringe, lace, velvet ribbon, bias folds, bows, etc., etc., and all upon the same costume!" one writer complained. By this time, too, sewing machines were created to make trimming even easier. Demorest's noted: "Improvements in sewing-machines, and greater skill in the use of the numerous 'attachments,' are rapidly [bringing] the ornamental products of the 'machine' up to the finest specimens of hand labor."
       To own a dress without "tasteful" trimming was the mark of a terrible dressmaker and an unladylike woman. Fashion magazines throughout the Victorian era took special care to describe the latest in trimmings, and offer advice on their best use. "Every one, who lives and moves and has her being in the world of fashion, is using up her mental faculties in adapting to her own use whatever the present mode allows her of personal ornamentation," one writer for The Metropolitan opined. "She knows the effects of gaslight, and moonlight, and she uses a prodigious effort to make the most of her individual advantages, and no doubt she is justifiable in her endeavor."
       The method of lighting was an important consideration for the Victorian woman. With this in mind, the first star designer, Charles Fredrick Worth, kept rooms in his establishment that helped his clients imagine what his clothes would look like under various types of lighting, including candle and gas light. Often, when fashion magazines mentioned a new trim, they made note of its effects. An 1864 issue of Peterson's, for example, remarked: "White bugles are very much worn as a fringe on evening dresses and head-dresses. These have a bright sparkling effect by gas-light."
       By the late 19th century, trimming had become so extensive that it ceased to be even semi-democratic. "There is a great appearance of simplicity in the making up of spring dresses," the editors of The Voice of Fashion wrote in 1891, "but the actual cost of these modern dresses is something beyond what had been even thought of hitherto, with the elaborate embroidery, lace and passementerie. The trimming of a fashionable dress is an enormous expense, and is sometimes one which represents a small fortune." By 1899, The Delineator observed that "entire dresses are available made of shaped pieces of lace...Another fancy is to make a dress entirely of lace frills..." What had once been a mere trim had become the whole of the dress.
       One type of trimming frequently overlooked is the extensive trims Victorians put inside their dresses. In 1883, Demorest's gave just a glimpse of this important aspect of Victorian fashion: "The only finish [for dresses] consists of hems and stitching, or silk facing...Piping, and even binding have gone out altogether." The trims on the inside of the dress were, at this moment at least, considered more important than the trim on the outside. Victorian bodices, often layered on the outside with suffocating layers of trim, were not without trimming on their insides, as well.       Throughout most of the Victorian era, bodices were well boned. The placement of bonings varied, as did the way they were sewn in. Often, they were encased in pretty silk linings, edges pinked, and then handsewn to the dress. Early in the Victorian era, only real whalebone was used, but by the 1890s, it was rarely used, and "featherboning" (often made of bird's bones) and steel usually replaced the traditional, unbending whalebone.
       There was also something The Ladies' Home Journal politely dubbed "the necessary padding." The better dressmakers always padded bodices between the breast and armhole, eliminating wrinkles that inevitably appeared in that area otherwise. And of the authentic garments I have examined personally, a good 90% of them also have padding a little lower down; padding the bust was no easy task, however, as The Journal pointed out. It was indeed an art not to make the padding look bunched up and phony (like bath tissue stuffed inside a training bra), and there were frequent arguments among dressmakers as to what sort of material should be used. Horsehair was the first to offer Victorian ladies' assistance, but later cotton or curled hair took its place, only to be replaced by layers of taffeta ruffles by the turn of the century. Another bit of padding that some Victorian bodices made use of was described in 1897 by Harper's as being a small flat pad placed at the center front of the bodice waist to give "as straight a look as possible to the front of the gown."
       While boning and padding were generally considered "essential" (along with the binding of seam edges and other little dressmaker's tricks), some hidden trims were pure fantasy. "The American dressmaker has yet something to learn form her French sister," a writer for The Delineator noted in 1895. "Not the least charming of the many dainty and attractive features of a French gown as it comes fresh from the modiste's box is the delicate perfume it exhales. Upon examination this will be found to proceed from a bag of sachet powder sewn to the lining in the upper part of each sleeve."
       The Victorian skirt was not to be left far behind, however. Possibly the most famous of "secret" Victorian trimmings was the not-so-secret dust ruffle or balayeuse. Popular in both noisily swishing taffeta and most subtle lace or mull, dust ruffles were sewn to the bottom edge of skirts to protect hems from wearing out, since most Victorian skirts trailed the ground.
       Related to this is the less showy skirt-braid or binding. Again sewn to the inner part of the hem in order to protect it from wear, this simple and useful device ranged from pretty lengths of braid to more dressy pieces of velvet or velveteen. By the 1890s, such a trim was not just a nicety, it was a necessity, and all skirts required some version of it. Also in the 1890s, skirts were trimmed with horsehair or crinoline to help give them that proper "bell" shape that was in vogue, but sometimes additional trimmings were experimented with. One magazine noted the use of boning in the skirt to give it the proper silhouette, and in 1893 The Delineator confessed that "wires are being used in the hems of dress skirts to maintain their flair."
       But whatever the trim--whether obvious outside embellishments like stenciling or piping, or inner secrets like boning or padding--trims were possibly the most important part of making Victorian fashions something very special, indeed.

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04/21/2006