Clip Art of Victorian Clothing

I found a lot of beautiful drawings of Victorian costumes when I was searching for Victorian frames and other vintage clipart, and now here comes a page with some of it.

I am not at all an expert on clothing, but it is fascinating to see how much the Victorian fashion in clothing changes throughout the century, from Empire style with soft, classical drapes, high-waisted dresses, bare bossoms and arms - to the extreme Victorian fashion with first cone-shaped skirts, later the huge crinoline skirts, very tight laced corsets and later again corsettet wasp waist and bustles - which again disappeared late in the century.
A lot of change!
 
As I said I am far from an expert in clothing and historical fashion, so what you get here are pictures and clip art of Victorian dresses and Victorian costumes to use for cards, greetings, logos and other things where you can use these wonderful pictures.

After working with these clip art of Victorian clothes and reading about it, what I find most fascinating of all is that everything from the 1800th which ones seemed such a long time ago, suddenly became almost recent to me.
When you read in the fashion magazines from mid 1900th century you can read the lines: "Latest Fashion and Clothing" and "New Fashion Style" and you can imagine how the women and men of these days looked at these pages with new men's fashion clothing and the newest fashion in dresses and hats, talked about them, were chocked by them sometimes, tried to copy them or maybe bought them - exactly like we do today!

I think I will start with some clip art of ladies fashion clothing from the start of the 1800th to illustrate the changes that come later in that century.

Ladies Fashion Clothing Late 1800th Century

 

  I made the dress clip art above in a version with black background, partly because I want to show you how well these dress and fashion clip art will look on a colored background, partly to show you that all these vintages dresses and men's clothing come with a transparent background and can be used on any background, also together.

                      

Victorian Clothing Clipart:

The Victorian Era goes from 1837 - 1901, the period where Queen Victoria ruled The British Empire.

This first clip art is from a Victorian fashion magazine from 1841 showing four women wearing the latest fashion in evening dresses.

You can see how the hair style with ringlets is now dominating, and the Victorian dresses have changed from the dresses in Empire style to complicated dresses with Crinoline skirts.

The waists are tightly laced with corsets.

How different from the long slender line in the dresses you find above from the late 1800th century and the start of the 1900th century.

If you want to read more about the fashion style from before the Victorian Era, here are a link  to more about the Empire style, also called Regency style, and one here to the Western fashion in the start of the 19th century, with a very interesting overview of the changes in fashion.

Most of all try to look at the Wikipedia page about Victorian fashion.
Even if facts about the historian fashion was not what you were looking for, it is really interesting.

Here is a beautiful wedding dress from 1837, from a Parisian Magazine, seen from both the front and back:

Wedding dress Paris 1837 PNG

1849 dame fashion PNG

If you are looking here for ideas for Victorian costumes, you can use all these clip art as inspiration, but if you want to use the for clip art, here is another example of how you can combine the clip art of the Victorian dresses with corners and ornaments from my other pages:

Example of use of some of the Victorian clip art

          

Victorian fashion with hat and umbrella PNG	Victorian dresses newest fashion PNG

         

1841 two ladies with crinolines and ringlets PNG

Woman's Victorian dress 1858

Dresses for ladies Victorian Era PNG

Crinolines and laced waists Victorian fashion PNG

A page from a Fashion Magazine 1848, with a man's dressing gown and women in day dresses. PNG

Here comes a page from one of the women's fashion magazines, this one from 1860, with huge crinolines.

1860 latest fashion crinolines in Paris

 The next of the Victorian dresses is of a dress from 1873, where the crinoline skirts have more or less disappeared and given place to bustles holding op the skirts behind the woman.

1873 daily dress for promenade

The next of these Victorian costumes is from 1879, where even the bustle has become smaller, the dresses altogether becoming more slender.
Not that it made these dresses more comfortable, the extreme lacing of the waist and the skirts that tightened below by the knees made it very difficult for the women to breath and move naturally.

Victorian ladies' evening dress 1873

Woman's newest fashion evening dress 1879

Men's Fashion Clothes in the Victorian Era:

You can read about the men's fashion clothing on Wikipedia, where you will find an overview of the changes through the Victorian Era for Victorian clothing for both men and women.

This first picture is from a fashion magazine from 1852:

Men's fashion clothes 1852 Victorian Era

 

Young man's fashion clothes 1852	Men's fashion clothing 1852	Victorian clip art man with top hat

Here are some Victorian clothing clip art from 1837, with top hat formal wear:

Gentleman's dress	Victorian gentleman's clothing 1837

A gentleman's hunting outfit and other clip art of men's fashion clothing 1837:

Gentleman's hunting outfit Victorian Era	1837 men's fashion clothes

An overcoat lined with fur, and a "coach man bear set" to use for driving the sleigh in Hyde Park.

Men's fur overcoat	Coach man bear fur set

And now a big jump to a picture from a fashion magazine from 1917.
What a change!

Men's fashion clothing 1917

                 

Dress and Fashion for Victorian Children:

1894 Victorian clothing for children child's blazer	Infant's coat Victorian fashion
Victorian children's clothing 1896	Girl's fashion Victorian clothes 1894

Fashion in girls' hats in the 19th century, from a period where the hats and bonnets grew to huge dimensions.

Victorian girl's hat	Small Victorian girl's bonnet

A page from a Fashion Magazine with Victorian children's clothing.
You could almost use these clip art for a paperdoll.

Victorian children's clothing

Victorian boys suit sailor collar button boots	Boy's clothing 19th century fashion
Sailor suit for boys late Victorian clothing fashion	Fauntleroy suit boy fashion 1894
Lord Fauntleroy clothing	Victorian clothing for boys late 19th century

 

Boy's hats in the Victorian period

Victorian era boy's hat	Young boy's hat Victorian era

Victorian costumes for girls late in the Victorian Era:

Edwardian fashion for girls 1905 New York	1905 Edwardian fashion girl's dress

Victorian Hat Clipart:

This photo from 1830 shows the new fashion with enlarging the head with hats and feathers and ringlets.

Also the laced waist.

Enlarging the head with hats and ringlets

  

Victorian fashion woman's hat 1872	1872 Victorian hat fashion for ladies
Hat fashion for women 1872	Automobile veil fashion Victorian era

    

Above you see a few examples of the fashion in women's hats in the 19th century, also a charming automobile veil from the late period.

I have made a page with only ladies'  Victorian hats, because I find them so decorative and amazing, pompous and sometimes a little funny.

On the other hand, if you take a look at all the various ways in fashion only during the last 50 years, a lot of the clothing looks funny :-)

Victorian Dresses Late 19th Century:

Victorian catalog women's fashion 1894

Victorian clothing home dress 1894	Ladies' Victorian home dress 1894
House dress 1894 Victorian style	All wool cloth cape Victorian clothing 1894
Late Victorian suit for women	Ladies' Victorian fashion lingerie

Victorian Lingerie and Men's Underwear:

    Victorian lingerie for women and children

Victorian lingerie bustles and waists

Woman with Victorian corset	Victorian fashion in lingerie corset
Corset for women in 19th century	Victorian lingerie fashion
New fashion Victorian lingerie	Woman in Victorian underwear

Victorian men's underwear JPEG	Special underwear large Victorian men JPEG
Men's combination underwear	Men's stocking advertisement

Victorian Clothing in Dress Reform Style:

The Victorian dress reform was mainly created by some doctors and largely middleclass women involved with the first wave of feminism in United States, Germany, Great Britain and Sweden from 1850th.

You can read more about it here (it was actually quite new to me!) and here are some clip art of these dresses in reform style.

When you have looked at the fashion changes throughout the 19th century I think it is very understandable that there had to come a fashion for women that allowed them to actually be able to breath and move.

I don't know much about the fashion for women from the working class, but I guess there clothing must have been much more comfortable.
The fashion for the upper classes required servants to help dressing and undressing, and were also an announcement to show that the women of the upper class didn't have to do any work themselves.

Victorian dress reform dress 1901	Evening dress Victorian dress reform 1901
Swedish Victorian dress reform dress 1885	Reform kleid dress 1901

Reform kleid party dress 1901

Women Fashion Clothes Start 20th Century:

Woman's concert dress 1900 PNG	Late Victorian evening dress 1900 PNG
Ladies' fashion party dress 1917	Home designed party dress 1917