Shaping Our Identity: Fashion

Do you have photographs of your ancestors in Ipswich in the 1860s and 1870s? Help our collection of fashion for this period to grow by contributing historical photographs from your families precious memories. Historical photographs show us how fashion has evolved over the years but also gives us a glimpse into the lives of people and their position in society.

As in the previous time period (Convicts & Colonials), the type of clothing worn depended on a person's social class. In the 1860s women's hair was arranged into a chignon and in the 1870s a fringe over the face was considered fashionable. The large, unmanageable crinoline was replaced with straight dresses with a long train for evening wear.

Following is an interesting extract from 'Punch' in 1865 titled Lines to a 'Young Lady of Fashion':

I love thee for thy chignon, for the boss of purchased hair,
Which thou hast on thine occiput the charming taste to wear. 
Oh, what a grace that ornament unto thy poll doth lend.
Wound on what seems a curtain-rod with knobs at either end!

I love thee for the roses, purchased too, thy cheeks that deck,
The lilies like wise that adorn thy pearly-powdered neck,
And all that sweet "illusion" that, o'er thy features spread,
Improves the poor reality of Nature's white and red.

I love thee for the muslin and the gauze about thee bound,
Like endive that in salad doth a lobster's tail surround,
And oh! I love thee for the boots thine ankles that protect,
So proper to the manly style young ladies now affect.
I love thee for thy figure not; there may, for aught I see,
The clothes-frame of draper's shop inside all that dress be,
I do not love thee for thy face, do but thy surface know,
The picture 'tis I value, not the canvas hid below.

I love thee for thine emptiness, thy vanity, and pride;
But oh! I too lovely, far too dear, art thou to be my bride.
So dear a wife as thou wouldst prove to marry thee, alas!
How very rich I ought to be, and should be-what an ass!

Illustration by Nanette Dingle

Robyn Buchanan described George and Jane Thorn's clothes for the special occasion of the first train journey in Queensland in 1865.

Jane calmly continued to button her gloves. She had taken a great deal of time today deciding what to wear for such an unusual excursion. Eventually she had rejected her practical but dull travelling dress and was wearing a magenta day dress with pagoda sleeves and a crinoline skirt with many flounces. On her head she wore a spoon bonnet - the very latest fashion.

 

Jane had certainly taken a long time but the result was well worth it - he thought that she would have looked fashionable  even in London itself. Their visit to England six years earlier had allowed her to see English fashions at first hand after so many years in such a remote colony and like most other wealthy people in Queensland, they kept up with the latest fashions and social changes which they read about in English papers.

 

George too was looking a fine gentleman today. It was a long time since they had lived a pioneering life in the little cottage which once stood on the edge of the Claremont garden, and George was a notable man now.