Specifically in regards to the Victorian era, I have noticed many people have this perception that they often dressed in very severe looking black clothing.
I think this is because of the popularity of wet plate collodion photography which was a new invention in the latter half of the era.
A plate was a sheet of glass covered with a liquid layer of silver bromide, which was sensitive to light. The way this chemical reacted to light however meant that warm colours (red/yellow/pink) became very dark, and cool colours (blue/cyan/green) would become lighter. This picture demonstrates roughly how colours would translate in a wet plate exposure.
It also meant that the blue sky would blend smoothly with the clouds, which is why it's so difficult to find Victorian photographs with visible clouds. They were there, you just can't see them.
The point is though, those pictures you see of Victorian women who appear like they are in mourning due to their black dresses? Well, those dresses were likely red, yellow, or pink. Their fashion was no less colourful than any other era.
From my sister who is a conservator for the Smithsonian: "There are lots of swatch books and trade catalogs that reflect the colorful clothes that Victorians wore. It was also the era of synthetic dyes that produced brilliant colors that hadn't ever been achieved with natural dyes. Many of these dyes were fugitive, meaning light sensitive, so we only know what they looked like if scraps have been very well preserved." So interesting! TIL
This misconception isn't helped that the namesake of the era, Queen Victoria, did indeed dress herself almost constantly in very severe looking black clothing after her husbands death.
Even the dog looks like it's in mourning
It was golden before the queen's husband's death.
"Hyave this dorg peented blyack!"
"Do as I seay!
🎶 I see a gold dog and I want it painted black. 🎶
Thanks. Now the song is stuck in my head.
Dogs actually mourn their owners after their owners death.iirc
Yea i'm not sure the relationship your or i would have with a pet dog is the same the relationship the royal dog has with his owners.
Not sure which one looks more like a dog
Didn't we just learn, that photos from this period prove nothing?
Heh...its actually verified by contempory accounts.
This is SO INTERESTING! Thank you!
I know it's not, but the way this comment is formatted makes it sound condescending as hell. I love it.
And the way your comment is formatted makes it sound like you were going to start your sentence with "I know it's not interesting".
Don't make me pull this car over
I read that with the voice of cris traeger
I found it more enthusiastic than condecending, personally. Some people are optimistic than others.
Yes it's very interesting how the lighting affects our perception of past fashions. I woke up at midnight because I had to drop a log. My eyes were sensitive to the light on my phone so I closed my right eye and looked at all 200+ years of fashion with my left eye. It burned a little bit, but I finished and went back to bed. Got up again a few minutes later and this time it wasn't my eyes that felt the burn. Well that's the last time I put a number 10 hot sauce on my sandwich, or so I tell myself on nights like these. It's like when you say you'll never drink again after throwing up from all those 2 dollar tequila shots, then next week your buddy Dave asks you to come out again and you don't even remember what happened the week before and you just keep repeating the cycle.
Their fashion was no less colourful than any other era.
Well, at least until the development of synthetic dyes. Mauve was a breakthrough and it was everywhere in fashion shortly after the dye was discovered, simply because it was such a striking bright colour, and then the other aniline dyes started following. Bright colors were much more expensive before the 20th century.
Next do a peasants fashion I bet it will be white brown black and grey.
It's so funny how this has inverted. I now associate black, grey, and neutral palettes with sophistication and expensiveness, natural fibers being "better", and bright synthetic multicolored clothing as being cheap. Generally speaking, of course.
Even before the synthetics, colors were fairly bright. Some pre-synthetic dyes could be expensive - e.g. if you wanted that true cochineal red, if you needed a deep blue that would take several dye baths - but on the whole they had quite a range of color available.
Queen Vic may have something to do with this, what with her mourning dress for however many decades it was.
On a related note, black Crown Vics look best :D
Actually, they did dress in black a lot, at least in the cities. The use of coal fires for fuel ensured that there were a lot of little black specs floating around in the air all the time, that tended to get stuck to your clothing and then smeared. Using black (especially for outerwear) made this less noticeable. Otherwise, you'd have to constantly do laundry, and laundry was expensive back then. Plus, a lot of people only had a few clothes in comparison to our wardrobes, and having a great coat AWOL because it was drying was not tenable. So it was often brushed, not washed, and brushing coal dust onto anything but black leads to a bad time. Your at home attire, on the other hand, and evening wear were often colorful.
I'm one of those people, I thought they would dress in dark colors. Even in movies though you often see dark Victorian clothing.
I've also heard that in Victorian photographs everyone always looks so solemn is because you had to sit a very long time in front of the camera, meaning people didn't smile in photographs because it would be very uncomfortable.
1790 accidentally says 1890 so it threw me off. Theres no way they wore that a hundred years before, that would be scandalous!!!!
I would find it interesting if someone colorized Victorian era wet plate photos
Why would this not affect their skin colour as well? If you have a pale complexion would it not make it darker? ELI5 lol.
Sorry but this sounds very specious to me. Silver bromide has been used in emulsion ever since then and doesn't cause warm colors to look black. If you go buy black and white film now, it is made with the same chemicals so it is misleading to say that is the cause. If warm colors are turned black, their skin would turn black as well. It would create a very unnatural looking tonal range instead of just making the clothes look black somehow.
Don't even want to see one of those "What color is this dress?" challenges for the Victorian Era.
Did ‘fast fashion’ begin in 1908 to an extent?
Can I give a shout out to /r/colorizedhistory here. I think it's relevant to the topic.
Only slightly related, but anyone interested in this would also be interested in a brief history of photography, including explosive clothing and disappearing dresses.
Your post should get gold. If I had the money I'd do it. But I don't so take this Reddit silver.
You didn't even give him Reddit silver...
They're called daguerreotypes.
No daguerreotypes came before wet plates. A wet plate exposure time is MUCH shorter than a daguerreotype.
Why is their skin normal black and white looking then? I would guess they wore black for contrast in the photos or because photos were a time of formality, like men wearing black business suits for special occasions.
I was wondering about this too. According to Wikipedia:
[...] the wet-collodion process was sensitive only to blue light.
So while white skin mostly reflects red and yellow light, it doesn't absorb all blue light. I assume the photographer would adjust the length of the exposure so that the blue light reflected by the subject's skin was neither too dark nor too bright. Think of it as if you were looking through a blue filter, like those in old red-blue 3D glasses.
I put together a little example here. As you can see, when filtering only blue light (lower right corner), the skin got a bit darker, but the red dress got a lot darker, making us think that it was probably darker originally.
There are some interesting comparison pictures in this pdf document.
Wow thanks for explaining it like this!
Loved that style.
deleted 0.8235 What is ^^^this?
There is also a specific reason why the people in that picture, and in turn most of Britain, would have worn black - that is Queen Victoria, who following the death of Prince Albert wore only black for the remaining 40 year of her life.
Fascinating! I had no idea.
This is really interesting: I have a beautiful photo of my great grandma from the early 1900's smiling with her daughter. Both look like they're wearing bright white dresses. However, I know that most women (especially living in rural Ohio) did not own pure white dresses. So, I wonder if they're actually wearing light blue or green dresses?
Black was indeed very common. Cities (who led fashio) in late 19th C were shockingly filthy. Add to that that mourning was expected to last a year, and black was commonly seen in most communities. Colorful prints, wallpapers etc and the tecnology to print colourful patterns were coming to the fore, but again were expensive for the normal household.
I did not know this, thank you! Also part of the reason we think of people in that era as being incredibly morose/serious is that taking a photo back then took a couple minutes. If you try holding a smile for a few minutes (I dare you, it's fun), your smile quickly becomes a grimace. Instead they would just frown since it's a much easier pose to hold.
Could one not hide beneath these unusually large frocks and devour mad (yet likely smelly pussy?)
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