Manchester City Art Galleries

The magazine was one of the fastest growing commodities in Victorian Britain, with about 12,500 titles appearing between 1824 and 1900. When Victoria came to the throne in 1837 the number of women's magazines was increasing rapidly as the mass market itself grew and diversified. Consumer culture was on the rise, and central to that were the commodities on sale.

Many social and cultural historians view the commodity as a spectacle that permeated the entire Victorian social system. Women's magazines, with their sumptuous visual illustrations, became spectacles in themselves. An interest in and celebration of fashion was something that all commercial magazines shared and even the non-commercial titles, such as those devoted to reform issues, covered fashion (constructed as so important to women's lives), if only to critique its pervasive and pernicious influence.

The dominant Victorian discourse of fashion represented it as progressive, linked to the market and to modernity, but at the same time others, particularly members of the dress reform movement, contested this view. The dissenters believed that fashion was regressive and unhealthy--they located the notion of progress and modernity in a rejection of the fashion system. So there are two different narratives of Victorian fashion: one that represents it as sumptuous spectacle and symbol of progress, and one, promoted by the anti-fashion lobby, that presented an alternative modern woman.

In this seminar, based on a paper given at the "Locating the Victorians" conference in July 2001, Kay Boardman, senior lecturer in English in the department of cultural studies at the University of Central Lancashire, describes and explores this complex relationship by looking at four particular items which are all related to the fashion system in one way or another: the fashion plate (a detachable, often coloured, page featuring models wearing the latest fashionable outfits), the corset, the bloomer and the bicycle.

• Understand the consumer culture that gave rise to the popularity of Victorian women's fashion magazines and the nature of the images they contained.
• Compare and contrast the viewpoints of the Victorian fashion magazines and the dress reform movement to the use of the corset.
• Explain why bloomers, although far more comfortable to wear than traditional Victorian women's clothing, never became popular.
• Analyse why Victorian fashion magazines were so successful, whilst the dress reform movement ultimately failed in its aims.

Browser: Netscape versions 4.x up to 4.76, or Internet Explorer versions 4.x or later. Your browser must be JavaScript-enabled and must be set to accept cookies.

Network Connection: The recommended minimum connection is 56Kbps with a throughput of 34Kbps or more. A faster connection is encouraged to take better advantage of the media elements in the seminar.