The Importance of Being Earnest Costumes General Historical Stuff

The Importance of Being Earnest
Costume Designs by Tara Maginnis, Theatre UAF 2000

General Historical Stuff

In the late Victorian era "fashion" according to Wilde was: "a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months." Wilde was a notable dress reformer in the late 1870's through the1880's, known for wearing purple velvet knee breeches and shoulder length hair when more conventional men dressed in black wool tube trousers, frock coats, short hair and long whiskers. (1870's). From 1888-1890, in his magazine The Woman's World, he wrote not only of art, poetry, and socialism, but at length on the tyranny and absurdity of modern fashion. The corset, worn by nearly all adult females in the Victorian era came under particular attack, on both health and aesthetic grounds.

By the 1890's when The Importance of Being Earnest was written, Wilde had opted for a somewhat more conventional look for himself, but his generally poor opinion of the overstuffed absurdity of uncomfortable items like " that modern monstrosity the so-called 'dress improver'" (bustle) continued unabated. Fashionable English dress in the late19th century was almost amazingly artificial and uncomfortable. Men's fashions included starched detachable collars, worn up to 3" high, and stiffened to the point that they maintained perfect rigidity in all weathers. Matching detachable cuffs, such as those worn by Algernon in Act I of Earnest were quite normally starched so stiffly that Wilde could give a stage direction like this:

(Algernon, who has been carefully listening, smiles to himself, and writes the address on his shirt-cuff. Then picks up the Railway Guide.)

In the 1890's women also began wearing detachable hard collars similar to those worn by men, or wore high collars out of the main dress fabric that were kept high and stiff with small sewn in bones or wires, turning the necks of their dresses into miniature corsets. Women's dress bore the biggest burden of discomfort and artificiality: with corsets compressing the torso, "dress improvers" on the buttocks, bust improvers for the under-endowed, artificial hair to plump out one's hairdo, high heeled high lacing boots (that now would qualify as fetish gear), stockings and garters, under-drawers (bloomers) and camisoles under the corset, corset covers and 1-2 petticoats over the corset, then topped off with a dress (also boned for stiffness), gloves and a large hat. 1895

If this were not enough, wealthy fashionable people like those in Earnest would often change their clothes several times a day. Wilde parodies this kind of excessive extravagance in wardrobe in this exchange, where we see the quantity of clothing Algernon requires for spending a week relaxing in the country:

Merriman. Mr. Ernest’s luggage, sir. I have unpacked it and put it in the room next to your own.

Jack. His luggage?

Merriman. Yes, sir. Three portmanteaus, a dressing-case, two hat boxes, and a large luncheon-basket.

Algernon. I am afraid I can’t stay more than a week this time.

Previously he told Lane his manservant to pack "my dress clothes, my smoking jacket, and all the Bunbury suits. ... "

Even for walks in the country, or the park fashionable English people maintained these standards. Even servants, like Lane and Merriman, were obliged to wear formal semi-uniform dress in order to advertise the consequence and fashion of their employers.

In the fashionable world of the 1890's, clothing was used to demonstrate one's wealth and freedom from work. The principles of Conspicuous Consumption and Conspicuous Leisure are best demonstrated by an excess of clothing that inhibits the wearer from engaging in any kind of manual labor. (For more on this see Thorstein Veblen -- The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899) -- Chapter Seven -- Dress as an Expression of the Pecuniary Culture) Conspicuous consumption could be achieved by wearing lots of clothing (like all the layers and items described earlier), by changing the clothing often (as Algy clearly does), and by having clothing made out of expensive or fragile, high maintenance materials.

One of the most fragile, high maintenance materials around was lace , which at that time was still predominantly hand made. As the 1890's wore on women's dress was trimmed with greater and greater quantities of the stuff, till about 1900, when it was common for wealthy women to have "lingerie dresses" and "tea gowns" entirely made of handmade lace. For more information about Late Victorian clothing you can use the following links:

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