Victorian Beauty Ideals

For my brand new project on Gothic Horror I've been looking at Victorian women and their beauty ideals and wanted to show my recent introduction to my research. The Victorian era showed me that women were seen to be substantially inferior to men or boys. With one town clerk in Stockport giving evidence in 1843 that families had poisoned their daughters and that it was deliberately planned, the boys were not poisoned he said "because the parents considered them to be useful" (1). This made me think of how women were not seen to be as important as men which can be seen in society briefly today. Women have a lot more opportunities than we had before but women were only seen to be beautiful and to serve men.

Dress was a very important interest to Victorian women as it showed their rank and position. "jewellery was a badge that women wore like a sergeant- major's stripes or field marshal's baton" It was important it seems as this showed their status. Having a small waist and straight back were also important as well as having a 24 inch waist or less using a corset. The corsets were made of "whalebone" and a "whalebone busk". Tightening the laces to achieve the small waist which was seen as the ideal of beauty however at the start of the century the fashion was loose dresses which fell softly from high up on the waist and this quickly changed from the 1820's and when Queen Victoria came to the throne. Victorian women's hair was looped over the ears in the 1840's they say to almost "protect women from coarse sounds" and the bonnets that they wore became more like a "shield to the face". (1)


"Like in past historical periods, even in the Victorian era a pale complexion was a sign of nobility. It meant that women were well-off and could afford not to spend hours working outdoors, which would inevitably result in a tan, something considered very vulgar. What changed though, was the way to achieve this fair complexion. Although some of the deadly mixtures of the past were still around, it was during this time that women started using Zinc Oxide, a white mineral powder, which was safer but still achieved the same effect.
However, in line with the decrease of the use of cosmetics, ladies would also preserve their skin pale by avoiding the sun and fresh hair, using parasols when outdoors to protect their skin from the sun rays and even by drinking vinegar. A white and translucent complexion was so desired that some women would even paint some very fine blue lines on their skin to make it look more translucent, as the veins underneath were showing." (2)
 
This is very similar I find to Elizabethan times where a pale complexion was seen as a thing of beauty and a personal show of your stature and nobility.
 
I'm looking forward to looking further into the lives of Victorian women and how we can relate to them today because although it seems like a long time ago, it really wasn't which interests me as our views on what beauty is has changed so much within around 160 years and I wonder what the world will perceive beauty to be in 160 years into the future?

 

 

(1) Joan Perkin. JP. (1993) Victorian Women, London: John Murray Publishers Ltd.
(2) Beautiful With Brains [Online] Available from: beautifulwithbrains.com [Accessed: 16.01.15]