Mid-19th Century/Civil War Fashions

Below are some mid-19th century/Civil War era fashions.  If you have a particular look or garment in mind, all we need is a good description and a drawing or picture to re-create it for you.

1860's ~

Sunday "best": Even a person of moderate means kept at least one special dress for church, visiting and special occasions. Below, I am modeling my Sunday "best" dress on a porch at Fort Vancouver National Historic Area. The dress is copied from an 1867 original, which was made of black silk taffeta. I am wearing it with a lace day cap. We were there to present a program, "Fashion Foundations," for the Northwest Civil War Council's School of the Reenactor. Inside the beautifully restored building my three models show their Sunday dresses:  a pink striped dress with velvet ribbon trims (copied from a period photograph) and a Medici girdle, a blue silk taffeta ensemble with gold and blue trim, and a pale green cotton lawn dress.

Ball gowns and men's formal attire...

Informal Day Wear: These young people are wearing fashionable 1860s separates. Suzannah, on the left, is wearing a fitted silk vest over a white cotton blouse. Jason is wearing a navy cotton vest over a striped shirt. (He is quite informal, having omitted a white collar and necktie!) Alyssa is wearing the new fashion color, magenta, in a Garibaldi blouse, black Medici sash, and black lightweight wool skirt.    

Below, on the left, a group of ladies picnic under the filbert trees in cotton day dresses.   

Above, under the tent fly, Alyssa is wearing a light blue cotton summer dress decorated with yellow ribbon trim applied in a "vee" shape on the bodice and in rosettes at the cuffs. With it she is wearing a black straw bonnet trimmed with yellow primroses and yellow ribbon ties. Suzannah is wearing a light blue-green cotton print dress with sleeve trims of the same fabric. This sleeve design was copied from several 1860s portraits.

Along with dresses and bonnets, you will need proper underpinnings for an authentic appearance. Lavender's Green makes chemises, drawers, petticoats, and corsets. Below are two of our styles: the 1850s corset is shaped by gussets at the hip and bust line, while the 1860s style is shapes by the use of curved  panels. Corsets start at $99 in natural colored cotton drill fabric. Corsets made of fine white cotton Coutil or other fabrics, or corsets with lace or braid trims, will be higher priced.

Men's attire: Chris is splitting firewood in a checked work shirt, plaid cotton vest, and a simple cotton necktie. Jason is wearing a more formal combination of dark wool pinstriped trousers and matching vest, with a scarlet silk tie and white dress shirt.

Bonnets were still fashionable in the 1860s, although smaller than the styles of the earlier decades. Below, Kelly models a white spoon bonnet with colorful trimmings, showing the distinctive shape from the side and front views. Lavender's Green Historic Clothing makes bonnets like these in the traditional manner, covering a wired buckram frame with fabrics and trims, all applied by hand. We can make a similar bonnet for you, for approximately $140.

Winslow Homer depicted a new sport  in this 1866 painting, The Croquet Game (right) that shows some beautiful "sportswear" options of the time.

Below are some authentic young ladies' styles of 1863 created by Lavender's Green.  We enjoyed recreating the atmosphere of the painting at a Civil War reenactment in the summer of 1998, and again this year.  As a girl grows into young womanhood, her skirts will be longer and her hair will be worn up, as in the painting.