The Magnifique Podcast

Episode 14 - Unveiling Gilded Age Glamour: Fashion, Industry, and Inequality

• Gabrielle Forchee-Gonzalez • Episode 14

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Fashion aficionados, brace yourselves! We'll take you on a sartorial voyage through the intricate layers and conservative trends of Gilded Age women's fashion. From shifts and corsets to bustles and hoops, understand how these garments shaped perceptions while hiding the wearer's true identity. We'll travel through the decades, exploring the changes from the first bustle style of the 1870s to the practical bicycling costumes of the 1890s. Discover the social dynamics of old and new money billionaires and how their fashion choices reflected their societal status. This episode promises a captivating blend of historical insights and fashion evolution that you won't want to miss!

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Gabrielle:

While monopolies are kind of like technically bad news bearers. I don't blame them. It sounds sick to own a monopoly, don't you think? Hi everyone and welcome to Magnifique, your favorite fashion history podcast. I'm your host, gabrielle. How was everybody's weekend? I hope it was just the most amazing thing.

Gabrielle:

I've just been kind of chilling. I've been doing my thing, living la vida loca. I have been doing this super fun thing where, now that it's August, and ever since it turned to August, I can't comprehend that it's still summer for another month and a half. In fact, I actually despise the fact that it's summer for another month and a half, being that it is August, notoriously the hottest month of the year. I, no, no, thank you. I want sweaters. I want them now. I need all of the layers. Actually, the more layers the better, if you don't mind, and I think a main reason is I know my summer fits don't eat the way my winter ones do, and you know that is fine. I think we all need to like be honest with ourselves. That's something I'm working on, but I'm just kind of trying to go somewhere I can shine. I know I shine in the winter. Nothing goes harder than like a mini skirting heights, and that's really just where I need my aura to be right now, and I can't do that if it's 100 degrees every day and humidity up the wazoo, you know. So I'm really struggling to find again the separation of church and state between wanting good fits but not being able to wear more than a piece of cloth before sweating my life away.

Gabrielle:

So, speaking of fits at eight, today we discuss Gilded Age fashion, mainly the women's expectations, the trends, the stylistic choices. Men's fashion at the time, while very different from today, still rather boring and bland, and we will talk about it, don't you fret. But it's just not as exciting as the women's fashion, and I'm here for exciting. It is incredibly hard for me to understand and kind of sit with a concept that people back in the day had rather normal lives and did a lot of the things that we do and in fact invented most of the stuff we have now. Hey, alexander Graham Bell on the telephone, apple could never as well as the skyscraper. The skyscraper made its appearance during the gilded age new york, and I do feel really icky about like modern skyscrapers and the 1800s being kind of in the same sentence. It just I can't conceptualize that. I feel like it's too long ago. People back then were making stuff from stone and and that's how I would like to keep my worldview, if you don't mind, I think I'm pretty open-minded about everything else. I would like to believe that anything past 1920s Stone Age doesn't exist to me. I did zone out in high school history class. Thank you so much for asking. I remember bits and pieces of it and the Gilded Age was one of my fascinations. So here we are. So first let's get a baseline, base-level education about what the Gilded Age is.

Gabrielle:

The Gilded Age is a period of US history post-Civil War, from the 1870s to about the turn of the century, like mid to late 1890s. The term was coined by Mark Twain in 1873 to describe the divided times in the country's history. She was divided, dare I say. Not dare I say because Mark Twain said it. The economy was booming from the industrial revolution and rapid railways. The economy was booming from the industrial revolution and rapid railway expansion. With this rapid industrialization came the need for more factories and thus factory workers. Due in part to this, the United States had an influx of immigrants coming in at the time and working in these factories. But it wasn't just immigrants, it was everyday American citizens working in these factories. While a majority of Americans were working in factories, somehow the entrepreneurs who owned the factories came up on top.

Gabrielle:

The few wealthy controlled most of the wealth in the United States and during this time, leaving scraps for the working class. Many of the business practices of this time favored the wealthy at the expense of the working class. Who, how crazy. Working conditions for those in the working class were absolutely terrible. This was long before the 40-hour work week, and so good luck trying to find a work-life balance if you even make it home from the factories. While working conditions grew increasingly concerning for the everyday worker, the business owners themselves were still looking for ways to cut corners, increase their profits to afford their luxury mansions, add-ons and all of the above. The wealth gap during this time was truly like any other. So such wealth disparity I can't imagine. I can't imagine a time where the working class is suffering while the 1% is just giggling at us. We can't, could never imagine that. But for context, wealthy entrepreneurs who owned the factories represented a tiny fraction of America. Those few lucky enough to be wealthy controlled most of the wealth in the United States during that time, which will tie into political corruption. But quickly, I'd like to discuss the difference between housing in the two classes. While a middle ground surely existed, we're talking about the two opposites of the spectrum.

Gabrielle:

Tenement housings went up all across New York City to support the rapid need for workers and spaces for these workers to live, leased, let or hired out, to be occupied, or is occupied as the home or residence of more than three families living independently of one another. Tenements were low-rise apartment buildings that often were very overcrowded, were inadequate for plumbing and ventilation purposes, very unsanitary. There is, um, just think of, honestly, just think of the charlie, no well, just think of the willy wonka and the chocolate factory scene where charlie is in the home with his family and they're all laying on one bed. That is kind of how I would describe it. I don't remember, like this time frame, where Willy Wonka is set in, so I can't like tell you if that's historically accurate. I don't think so. Probably not actually, but kind of the crammed, jam-packed. You know, you can still find tenement buildings all throughout New York today, only they've been turned into normal apartment buildings. That being said, the 1% wealthy bunch had sprawling mansions all along Fifth Avenue. So, to return to the initial point of political corruptness. The 1% high society were also often in the pockets of politicians for various favors, offering bribes in exchange for political biases or loopholes.

Gabrielle:

And I'm going to say it, I fear we may be bearing witness to another Gilded Age of sorts, maybe. Anyway, we kind of saw capitalism and monopolies really pop off in a big way during the Gilded Age, and for those of you who know me in real life, you know the only monopoly I like is the mobile game. I've since kind of fallen off, but this past year I have been living on Monopoly Go. While monopolies are kind of like technically bad news bearers, I don't blame them. It sounds sick to own a monopoly, don't you think so. I can't really blame them in wanting to play like ruler or king, but also, yes, I can.

Gabrielle:

Major monopolies that you may be familiar with are JP Morgan of the banking industry he owned a monopoly. Are JP Morgan of the banking industry he owned a monopoly. John D Rockefeller he owned an oil monopoly. Cornelius Vanderbilt he owned a railroad monopoly. And Andrew Carnegie he owned a steel monopoly. So those are big, big billionaire boys of the time.

Gabrielle:

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that the only difference between billionaires today and back then is that Gilded Age billionaires loved loud wealth and building public access spaces, and today's billionaires really love quiet money and well, to be frank, there aren't any Zuckerberg halls or Musk libraries. I know SpaceX exists, but I kind of have a one-sided beef with Elon Musk and refuse to acknowledge anything that he does, so I don't know if they have done anything cool out of spite and I refuse to look into it. So the homes were huge, the dresses were bigger and somehow the parties were even larger. This was a time of extravagance beyond belief. We had just seen the industrial boom of the railway expansion, which created hundreds of new wealthy elites sporting their finest things, trying to prove their wealth to all who will indulge.

Gabrielle:

I feel like everyone's name I've ever heard come out of the Gilded Age is in some way, a railroad tycoon, and I mean, yeah, that's kind of hyperbolic, but like not really there were so many railroad tycoons. It's kind of like the influx of tech jobs in the 2010s, where everybody is a tech man or a crypto mogul. Now I feel like railroad tycoons are just Silicon Valley tech bros. Now, who's to say the Gilded Age brought us billionaire families that we consider old money today, like the Rockefellers, the Morgans and the Vanderbilts. All of these families would then go on to compete with old New York money, such as the Astor family. New money is challenged with proving their wealth by building the largest, most ornately detailed homes and we're always up to date with the newest, largest gowns, despite, you know, the goods and services trading.

Gabrielle:

The Gilded Age is an insanely complex moment in time and I'm forever fascinated by it. But fortunately for you, we only needed to know the basics for the purposes of talking about fashion. So, personally, thanks for asking. I love the Gilded Age. I love Gilded Age fashion. I am so, so, so aware that in that period of time I would have absolutely been a working class girl sweating in the textile factory or something. But you know, a girl can dream. I can dream of affording these dresses. Let a girl dream. And unfortunately for the billionaires, they ate up, they ate left, no crumbs. They looked incredible. So, yeah, I'm kind of idolizing billionaires right now. So what? But with the working class not having time to really even think of anything besides work and surviving, the fashion appeared to be rather lackluster, if you don't mind. So we're going to talk about rich people for the purposes of having something entertaining. But first let's talk about the general fashion of the time.

Gabrielle:

The general fashion of the time leaned rather conservative, with many people thinking of their clothing as a costume of sorts in which they would choose how they'll be perceived on. What they wear and who they are as a person should not be shifted as they are, not their costume. And, be honest, is that not slay? I read that the first time and I said no, because why are we not wearing costumes? Why are clothes so personal? Now, they just wanted to feel pretty, and I mean again at the expense of the working class. But, ladies, don't you ever just want to feel pretty?

Gabrielle:

The outfits of this time included a handful of layers protecting the person from their outer garments and gowns, and then vice versa, protecting the garments from the person, and this occurred because some articles were made out of various dyes that would irritate, stain or even be poisonous to the skin. This is what I'm talking about by the clothes ate. They went so far into serving that they just found a way to be less poisoned instead of wearing the clothes at all. That is so insane. Men at the time were boring and they did different renditions of suits and different designs on their facial hair, a la the handlebar mustache. Women, on the other hand, went crazy in the sewing room. Every single detail goes so crazy. But let's first talk about layering. There are four different layers that an outfit consists of, so let's just read those off and then I'll kind of go into detail.

Gabrielle:

So we have the shift, we have the corset, we have the petticoat and then your outer garment. But what is a shift? So the shift is a garment in which the length and shape can be changed with the trends and the times, but the basic function is to be a shapeless dress that protects you from the garment and vice versa, protecting the outer layers from your sweat and your odors. They didn't wash themselves as much as we do now as well, as some garments are just too delicate to be washed regularly, if at all, to be honest, and can only take up to a light brushing. So this garment helps to protect and trap in all those odors and sweat and dead skin cells, really to make sure that your outer garments are in as pristine shape as possible and you can get the most out of your very expensive custom-made garments, and these get changed out much more regularly than anything else yourself even they get laundered multiple times weekly and changed out every few days, if not every day.

Gabrielle:

So next we have the corset. The purpose of the corset is to add some shape to the body as well as to have some bust support, as, again, the shift is shapeless and doesn't really do anything for you in terms of silhouette. So the corset gives you the trendy silhouette at the time. The corset should be snug, but it shouldn't be hurtful. I know in many times of history the corset is seen as something that you wear and you can't breathe, or it's really restrictive and yeah, I mean it kind of is, but you should be able to breathe. It's meant as like a soft mold for the silhouette. It's not supposed to be like rock hard, can't bend you can't really bend, but like you should still be able to breathe and kind of wiggle.

Gabrielle:

Next we have the petticoat. The petticoat's purpose was to keep your legs and stockings from sticking to your dress. Oftentimes the silk material that the dress is made out of would stick and cling. So it just acts as to keep a little bit of modesty and just generally to look better. It also acts to smooth out lumps and bumps before the dress goes on. So, in a sense, shapewear. So bustles and hoops would then go on at this layer too, but they will vary based on how heavy they are and how much friction they would cause between the body and the garment. So a bustle for those wondering would be like so a bustle is a hard metal structure for the garment and it's used to create like a unique shape, ie a bigger booty, like extravagantly bigger, um, wider hips, and this bustle would go over the petticoat as it is a bit heavier. A hoop would go under the petticoat because the petticoat needs to smooth out any lumps and bumps. And then the next garment is just your dress, your jacket, your hat, any of your accessories, all of the above, but the layers prior help to protect you from them. The layers prior helped to protect you from them.

Gabrielle:

So next I'd like to talk about the trends of the decades. What girlies were wearing. This portion relied heavily on the Eleanor Roosevelt's National Park Services article. So if at any point you're like, ooh, that sounds relatively similar to what what Eleanor Roosevelt's article said, yeah, yeah, a key piece for a woman's status was a dolman-style mantle designed to allow for easy movement when going in and out of carriages and could also be left on during short social visits. A mantle was a cape-like overcoat suitable to wear with large skirts or bustles. For the period, many of these mantles were very bold patterns think like paisley or something of the sorts with velvet collars and fringe decorations that were meant to signify your status.

Gabrielle:

So since the Gilded Age spanned across three different decades, let's first talk about the 1870s. So in the 1870s, women's clothing became increasingly complex, with various colors and restrictions, while men's fashion remained rather subdued. The focus shifted to the back of the woman's skirt, which two distinct silhouettes became out of this era. First we have the great circular crinolines of the decades prior, which collapsed. So then we see the rise of the first bustle style, and the bustle style created a soft and drapey protrusion on the back. These bustles were fuller in the back rather than in the front, so it was kind of a flatter front, and then you just had big backside, not just the butt, like the whole back.

Gabrielle:

Women's garments varied in color, in shape, featuring vibrant colors thanks to the use the new use of synthetic dyes and layering vibrant colors on top of dark ones. At this time, people loved putting a plum with a very deep navy. That was a particularly popular combination. But then around like 1876, the princess line gained popularity which were characterized by vertical seams in the bodice, quite high necklines and rather long sleeves necklines and rather long sleeves, and this was named after Alexandra, the Princess of Wales. And then the princess line and bustle carried into the 1880s. So let's kind of talk about that as well.

Gabrielle:

Early 1880s. The princess line style continued from the 70s to the 80s and it also features dresses without the horizontal waist seam and instead hugging the body through those vertical seams and tucks. The bodice then extended over the hips, which kind of contributed, which kind of contributed to the slim body hugging silhouette. So the 70s we had a big backside. In the early 80s we had a more slim aesthetic. But then we we moved to the late mid to late 1880s when a new silhouette emerged with a hard shelf-like bustle At the small of the back. The high bustle became a defining feature of the late 1880s. Women's dresses were adorned with bows, lace, frills and just intricate metallic embroidery. Skirts were often gathered to reveal underskirts, and hairstyles were much simpler now than they were in the 1870s due to the rising popularity of hats. Meanwhile, men continued to be lackluster, but we saw the rise of tuxedos for men, which gained popularity in america. James porter is credited for introducing the tuxedo style from England to Tuxedo Park, new York, where he wore it to the country club.

Gabrielle:

Now we move in to the last decade of the Gilded Age, the 1890s, and fashion for men and women looked toward the upcoming 20th century. Women began to spend more time outside of the home, both at work and leisure time, so fashion responded to this. Sportswear for women became highly popular, while incredibly different from today's athletic wear. This was revolutionary. At the time, women now had clothing options more suitable for activities, for new, socially acceptable activities like cycling or golfing or tennis. One notable sports option was the bicycling costume, which was basically a cross between a skirt and a pant a skort, if you will, and in a time where pants were not acceptable for women in the slightest. This was insane. This was amazing. Most women instead wore slightly shorter skirts, or skirts came with a deep pleat in the back while cycling, so that nothing got caught in the chain.

Gabrielle:

The shirtwaist ensemble also became popular for sportswear and office work. This consisted of long skirts with a shirt that was tailored like a men's shirt but was feminized with bright colors, lace, frills, other trimmings because how dare our garments be confused with men's garments? Of course. So by the 1980s, gone were the distinctive bustles of the previous two decades. We are now going for bell-shaped skirts, and puffy sleeves also became the rage. I love puffy sleeves. Now, 200 years later, so that's really insane. The 1880s also saw variations in sleeve lengths. Necklines depending on gowns of this decade, commonly exposed the wearish chest and was all the rage for, like high society, balls and men, you're back. They wore stiff high collars. Jackets were more frequently left unbuttoned, a lot more lax and leisurely. We're really starting to lean into sportswear how fun.

Gabrielle:

So I did mention that new billionaires and old billionaires kind of clashed. I would like to talk about the different archetypes between the two class systems. So, with a good deal of the US's hustle and bustle residing in New York, where many of the elite lived then and now, that being said, there was always a constant feud between old money, established billionaires, old new york and the new money, money that still smells like railroad billionaires. Old money at the time would look down upon new money. I'd like to talk about the differences in billionaire elite aesthetics and archetypes, both how they are similar and how they differ. So how they are similar, the formula for getting ready in high society for both class systems, old money and new money alike. There are a lot more, a lot more similarities and differences. So at the time, throughout the entire 30-year span. So at some points and times this would be applicable, other times it wouldn't.

Gabrielle:

Heavy on trains and ornamentation along the skirts, very decorated with various lace, extra fabric here, maybe some draping, very, very ornate. They were also known for changing up to five times a day morning wear, kind of lounging around the house when you just wake up. Afternoon wear, evening wear and everything in between. As previously mentioned, forearms can be shown most times unless it's an evening gown. Chests cannot be shown. Hair must be worn up in public at all times. Um, for people of that status, your hair was not to be shown down. Your hair being worn up was part of your costume and you needed to be dressed to the nines when in high society, makeup was strictly prohibited as it carries a negative connotation for high society. If you're seen wearing a lot of makeup, it kind of gives like Lady of the Night and nobody wants to be associated with lady of the night, like, come on, as far as jewelry goes, they were expected to be decked out with earrings and brooches and necklaces, really just all of the above. But, um, I kind of put this point here because I think we need to bring back brooches. I've been living on the app the Real Real and I have so many brooches in my cart it's not even funny. I think this winter I'm going to enter my brooch era, so be on the lookout for that. Be on the lookout. We're entering our brooch era and I forgot to mention this earlier.

Gabrielle:

But this isn't just for high society. Like mentioned this earlier, but this isn't just for high society. Like, everybody wore this. Everybody wore boots for modesty, in case a woman needed to lift her skirt to walk through the street or get out of the carriage. Heaven forbid her ankles show just a wee little bit, you know. So they wore ankle boots. I would resemble them more to like character shoes for like Broadway, if you think of like boots that Broadway dancers wear, they're more similar to that. And then, of course, you can't leave your house without accessories. So accessories of the time were hats, gloves. You were almost required to wear gloves whenever you left the house, as well as a hat, and the hat was heavily decorated with lace and an umbrella to protect you from the sun. At this time, during the late, later half of the Gilded Age, they did have purses, as women were bopping around town more often, but that really came toward the ending, truthfully.

Gabrielle:

But how did old money and new money kind of differ. Old money valued refinement and respectability. It gave secretive, yet elegant, much how it's portrayed today. Actually, old money gives unbranded white tea that costs more than my mortgage, but the person wearing it is the only one who knows the cost. Old money reminds me of incest, but we don't have to go there today. We can talk about that at a later date. Incest, but we don't have to go there today. We can talk about that at a later date.

Gabrielle:

New money, on the other hand, old money was extravagant in a modest way. New money is all about flaunting the latest and greatest styles very loud, very in your face, and I feel like this also still holds true today. New money, in some regard, is often looked at with a side eye, which I don't really understand. I mean, money is money, but new money gives, decked out in Gucci and so many LV branded things. But, like I said, money is money and I think you should spend it however you want, but that is the connotations that they have given and still continue to give.

Gabrielle:

So, in closing, the Gilded Age is a moment in time that simply cannot be replicated. The Met Gala a few years ago hosted a theme titled Gilded Glamour, which certainly opened my eyes to this age of fashion. The theme paid homage to the cultural excellence that was quoted to be brought to the United States at the time. The age was chosen to be celebrated due to the advancements it brought in society in terms of fashion, technology and everything alike. The Gilded Age is a very special era which I will be forever entranced by. So that was the Gilded Age. It is so insane and, truthfully, I didn't cover half of it. To be honest, I find this era to be incredibly fascinating. I will probably watch like 12 more YouTube documentaries on just the tenement, housing and the textile factories alone, but I hope I informed you. I hope I informed you to the best of my abilities on Gilded Age fashion and why things were worn, how they were styled, the unspoken rivalry between old money in old New York and new money. There is a HBO Max TV show called Gilded Age that I did watch a lot of YouTube analysis on because that looks really good, so I probably am going to start that, but I hope you enjoyed. If you did.

Gabrielle:

Don't forget to like us on all streaming platforms. We're on everything you could ever possibly think of. Follow us on Instagram, at MagnifiquePod, as well as myself alone, gabrielle Forshee, I'd love to see you on our Pinterest. We've been posting on Pinterest a lot more, just aesthetically, so I'd like to see you over there. And, yeah, let us know how we're doing and let us know your favorite part of this episode, what period of time that you find fashion to be most interesting. And, yeah, I appreciate you guys. I will see you back next Monday for Anna Wintour. Okay, I love you so much. Bye you.

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Gabrielle Forchee-Gonzalez

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