The Victorian era was a golden age of mourning. Victorians embraced the concept of a better life in heaven: death was not a tragedy, but to die and not be properly mourned was a deep fear. Funerals and events attached to the burying, immortalising, and remembering of the dead took on enormous importance. The adherence to codes of mourning etiquette, and emergence of a major industry to provide clothes and accessories for funerals, reached an apex in the 19th century for a number of reasons. Apart from the historical influence of mourning customs for Court and aristocratic circles, there was also the simple fact that mortality rates were higher. Almost half of all children did not live to adulthood; women commonly died in childbirth; men were lost at sea, in industrial or farming accidents, or due to insanitary living conditions. The average life expectancy was less than fifty years (Brett, 2006).

The combined cultural influences of religious rituals, superstition and symbolism also played their part. There was seen to be a correspondence between outer display and inner feelings when memorialising the dead, and mourning attire became subject to complex fashion etiquette. Whilst sombre clothing served as a visual symbol of grief and respect for the deceased, it also demonstrated the wearer’s status, taste and level of propriety. Mourning customs transcended all classes. Many Victorian households spent so much money on providing a “proper burial” that survivors were sometimes left without the most basic necessities.  

By the time Queen Victoria acceded to the throne in 1937, sartorial mourning rituals were already prevalent.  After she was widowed in 1861, the monarch limited her public appearances and dressed in degrees of mourning for the rest of her life. The ultimate example of chaste widowhood, many portraits and photographs of the Queen, post-Prince Albert’s death, show her dressed in black and wearing her distinctive widow’s cap. She became a role model for her subjects.

The growth of the mourning wear industry was also facilitated by the mechanisation of the textile industry during the mid 19th century, enabling the mass production of fabrics. Textile manufacturer Samuel Courtauld & Co became famous for the production of funeral crape, and vast mourning warehouses sold mourning clothing and accessories in the major cities of Europe and America, promoted by the popular press of the day.  

Emerging in the Renaissance, the European funeral ritual took inspiration from ancient Chinese and Egyptian traditions. 19th century widow’s attire in Europe and America had its roots in the monastic dress of the Middle Ages. The austere style symbolised modesty, chastity and the renunciation of worldly allure. Thick matte fabrics had been in use for mourning wear since Medieval times. The spread of funeral and mourning rituals in Britain took around two hundred and fifty years to filter down to the industrial working classes –  and was then still mainly confined to the servants of wealthy families (Taylor, 2010).

Formal rituals of bereavement became a yardstick of behaviour. The study of mourning dress provides an insight into the social position of women, in particular. Women bore the heaviest burden of the mourning ritual, becoming social outcasts for their first year of widowhood. They were expected to wear mourning clothes for longer than men and children, and to restrict their social activities to mourn their husband and his memory. Men, who already wore dark suits, merely added a black armband, gloves, a hatband, and a cravat. When mourning the loss of a husband, or family member, a woman’s appearance had to reflect her changed social status and potential vulnerability due to the loss of financial protection and the domestic stability of marriage. Although strict rules of etiquette surrounded the various stages of mourning and the clothing and accessories associated with these, there was still a strong sense of fashion: Whilst fabric covered the entire body and even the glimpse of an ankle was considered scandalous, corsets exaggerated a woman’s sexuality, and bustles emphasised the female’s rounded hips and buttocks, accentuating her tiny waist.

The four stages of mourning were shortened or stopped depending on the relationship to the deceased. As the period of mourning extended, it was admissible to introduce additional elements of colour and embellishment to clothing. The rules were largely subject to the wearer’s interpretation, personal taste and judgement, in addition to their individual circumstances.  The mourning clothes of kings and queens were grandest of all. Clothing worn by Queen Alexandra following Queen Victoria’s death was illustrative of the opulent Court dress for mourning.

 For a husband or a wife, first mourning lasted for a year and one month. A widow’s dress would be almost completely covered in mourning crape – a matte silk gauze that symbolised the early stages of bereavement. A typical ensemble of the 1890s might consist of a crape adorned bodice, skirt and cape. Crape was often fashioned into deep folds, pleats and ruches. For the death of a spouse, second mourning lasted for six months and less crape was worn. Black mousseline and taffeta were also allowed, along with poult de soie (corded silk) and moiré fabrics. Third, or ‘ordinary’ mourning lasted a further six months. In this period, crape could be removed, and silk or wool worn instead of bombazine. In the last three months, jet jewellery, decorative flowers, bows, and rouleaux (ribbons), could be added. The final stage, known as half mourning, lasted a further six months. New colours were permitted, included grey, mauve, violet, pansy, lilac, scabious, heliotrope and black with grey. During the 1870s, fashion columns advised on black and white for periods of lighter mourning, as an elegant alternative to grey or purple, which were classed as outmoded.  Half mourning wear might even extend to patterns of white stripes, checks or dots on a black background.

Symbolic of spiritual darkness, black was the favoured shade for mourning-wear, and became associated with death and the clothes of a widow – a woman often imagined as being dangerously independent and alluring. Harper’s Bazaar (August 9, 1879) said, “Black is more than ever the favourite colour of fashion. There was a time – our mothers will remember it – when the sole fact of wearing a black dress when one was not in mourning was sufficient to call forth a kind of reprobation, and to cause the wearer to be classed among the dangerously eccentric women.”  The popularity of black in the second half of the 19th century was stimulated by the production of chemical dyes in the 1860s, which also added to the costliness of mourning. A true shade of deep black that didn’t fade or turn blue or brown was preferable. Those unable to afford a new mourning wardrobe, especially the working classes, dyed existing garments and accessories black.

Half mourning dress might extend to vivid purple with a contrasting trim. There was even colour guidance for brides whose weddings coincided with a period of mourning. If they wished to be respectful, they may incorporate greys and blacks instead of the ‘ostentatious’ ensembles usually associated with weddings. Children, even babies, also wore mourning wear, but were permitted white with black embroidery or ribbon trimming.

Fabrics with a dull finish were generally considered to be more suitable for mourning than shiny, lustrous ones, which were better kept for lighter mourning.  The most commonly used fabrics were dull, crimped crape; cashmere; silk bengaline – a heavily corded fabric containing more cotton than silk; mousseline; taffeta; bombazine – woven with a silk warp and a worsted weft and usually trimmed with crape, the principle fabric of deep mourning for much of the 19th century – and paramatta, a cheaper type of bombazine.

The Victorians were also aficionados of sentimental symbolism. The jewellery of the era commemorated friendships, romantic attachments, engagements, weddings, and even business partnerships (Brett, 2006). Hair was the most widely used and accepted personal keepsake – lockets containing a lock of hair from the deceased were commonplace - and occasionally teeth: Queen Victoria was said to have worn a bracelet made from the baby teeth of her nine children. Accessories often featured flowers and leaves. Mourning millinery included caps and bonnets with elaborate floral and foliate designs. Jet beads were popular for jewellery, and as trimmings on capes and bodices. Walking dress for mourning usually incorporated a parasol, possibly of black taffeta overlaid with mourning crape and topped with mousseline de soie and bands of lace. Mourning veils of stiffened gauze were also worn. Even white undergarments were sometimes slotted with black ribbon, and widows and their daughters embroidered mourning handkerchiefs.

Department stores and specialist retailers were sources of information on mourning styles and standards of etiquette. By the 1860s, graceful and stylish mourning wear was available from an array of mourning warehouses (or Maisons de Deuil) including Jay’s, Peter Robinson’s and Pugh’s establishments, along with private dressmakers. Jay’s of London was especially well known for its lavishly illustrated catalogues of the latest fashions. Information regarding suitable clothing and the styles of the day were also transmitted via magazines and books on etiquette, including Queen, The Gentlewoman, The Lady, Lady’s Pictorial and Ladies Year Book – and on the other side of the Atlantic, Harpers Bazaar. Women’s periodicals and advice manuals, initially the preserve of the elite, spread to the burgeoning middle class. Handbooks on proper behaviour included Cassell’s Household Guide and Walter R Houghton et al’s American Etiquette and Rules of Politeness (1889).

There was usually an element of snobbery in promotional material for mourning wear. However, by the late 1870s, with the development of ready-to-wear mourning dress, even some of the working classes were able to purchase the requisite costume. Queen magazine published an advertisement for Peter Robinson’s Family Mourning Warehouse in 1882 offering, “Advantages to the nobility of families of the highest rank and also to those of limited means.”

Mourning wear was not without its critics, especially where expenditure was concerned. Genuine grief could also be disguised by mourning wear – was this an insincere display, or real sorrow? Eventually, there was even criticism of the Queen herself, as commented upon by Sarah A Southall Tooley in The Personal Life of Queen Victoria, 1897: “Her Majesty is a little behind the spirit of the times in regard to the regulations for mourning. She advocates absolute retirement for a time in the case of bereaved people, and the most lugubrious signs of outward mourning.”

“Fashion is a visual image of the social condition,” said Madge Garland, former Editor of Vogue and first Head of the School of Fashion at the Royal College of Art. With changing times came changing trends and, by the early 20th century, formal mourning wear simply became unfashionable.

REFERENCES

Death Becomes Her: A Century of Mourning Attire – Exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York - October 21, 2014 to February 1, 2015.

Brett, M. (2006) Fashionable Mourning Jewelry, Clothing and Customs. United States: Schiffer Publishing.

Flanders, J. (2004) The Victorian House: Domestic Life from Childbirth to Deathbed. London: Harper Perennial.

Taylor, L. (2010) Mourning Dress: A Costume and Social History. United States: Routledge Revivals/Taylor & Francis Group.

Wilson, E. (2003) Adorned in Dreams: Fashion and Modernity. London: I B Tauris & Co.

Images photographed at Death Becomes Her: A Century of Mourning Attire – Exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York - October 21, 2014 to February 1, 2015. Victorian style monochrome tile surround in main image via Abbey Décor at porcelainsuperstore.co.uk