Clothing and Landscape in Victorian England: Working-Class Dress and Rural Life

by Rachel Worth

In the context of this rapidly changing world, Rachel Worth explores the ways in which the clothing of the rural working classes was represented visually in paintings and photographs and by the literary sources of documentary, autobiography and fiction, as well as by the particular pattern of survival and collection by museums of garments of rural provenance. Rachel Worth explores ways in which clothing and how it is represented throws light on wider social and cultural aspects of society, as well as how 'traditional' styles of dress, like men's smock-frocks or women's sun-bonnets, came to be replaced by 'fashion'. Her compelling study, with black & white and colour illustrations, both adds a broader dimension to the history of dress by considering it within the social and cultural context of its time and discusses how clothing enriches our understanding of the social history of the Victorian period.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Fashion, British Literature, 19th Century

224 pages, Hardcover

Published March 30, 2018

Reviews

[Meghan LT · Rating 4 out of 5]

I sought out this book in the hope that it would be examining in detail what was worn by the rural working class in Victorian England, but the book is much more about how we should think about what we think we know about dress in that period. Fascinating, but much more a historiography book than a history of its own. That being said, it's an excellent book on the latter topic.

By far my favorite thing I got out of it was how well Worth was able to establish the scarcity and value of garments to working-class rural families. She does an excellent job at detailing how the very structure of their lives and the labor they had to do limited their clothing and its condition.

TONS of detail. Would have liked a few more pictures in-text but I understand publishing has limitations, and the author is very good at giving you enough detail about artworks' names and dates and garments' accession numbers that they're only a dedicated Google search away. I'd settle for having the "color" plates easier to find in the paperback: they're at the veeeeeery back and it took about 4 chapters for me to find them.

The author is also very good at staying neutral about the points she brings up, presenting evidence for one side of an issue or assumption, then circling around to show how the opposite is worth considering as well. I found this frustrating as I read it but after the fact it left a more balanced and thought-provoking conclusion.