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19th Century Changes in Silhouettes
The period from the mid 1790s to about 1820 (which included all of Jane Austens adult life) seems to have been pretty much the only one between the middle ages and the 20th century when womens clothing styles, in the predominantly Protestant and Catholic countries of Europe, were neither corseted or tightly-fitted from the waist up; nor hoop-skirted, crinolined, heavily full-skirted, or bustled below. ...
In other words, because the basic pattern/design of womens Regency clothing styles wasnt conspicuously anti-functional, an upper- or middle-class woman could often choose to wear clothes that were not very restrictive, and still look decent and somewhat fashionable -- something which was not true of the Victorian period or most of the eighteenth century. ...
The high-waisted Regency styles (or "short-bodied", as they were called at the time) focused attention away from the natural waist, and so counteracted against the tendency to constrict the natural waist which manifested itself in the fashionable womens clothes of almost all other periods from the 16th century until the beginning of World War I (and especially strongly during most of the 18th and 19th centuries, in the periods which surrounded the Regency
During the 1795-1820 "extended Regency period", Englishwomen apparently generally did wear "stays" of some kind when dressed -- but such "stays" could be relatively minimal and unconfining, and generally were not intended to constrict the natural waist in the manner of Victorian corsets.
The fashionable womens shoes of the end of the eighteenth century and the early nineteenth century were also less cumbersome than those of most of the 18th century, since they didnt generally have high heels (the contrast is visible in the 1742 vs.
Approximate Word count = 1305
Approximate Pages = 5.2
(250 words per page double spaced)
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