Silk Afternoon Dress | 1862 | Met Museum

I’m purposefully skipping the 1850s because I’m not much of a fan, and what you see in the previous post from 1848 is pretty exemplary of 1850s styles as well.

With the invention of the cage crinoline in 1858, skirts widened even more and lifted the weight and unwieldiness of the many petticoats previously used. The skirt silhouette in the height of the 1860s was round. Skirt decorations were minimal compared to earlier periods, and bodices were generally tight to emphasize a woman’s waist, shaped by rigid corsets of whalebone or steel. Rather than tightlacing (which wasn’t very common), the illusion of a much smaller waist was created through the full skirts and elements such as larger sleeves and dropped shoulder seams. After all, with large skirts and large shoulders, anything in the middle looks small! The clever seaming, waist points, and decorations increased this illusion.