100 Years of Fashionable Womenswear: 1830s – 1930s | V&A

These dresses may have survived precisely because they were so tiny and therefore difficult to be handed down or made over. The same is true of old sample shoes which were too small to be worn by most women.

I love this subject matter, I'd love a whole series of these videos examining the different dresses in the V&A collection

Ms. Allen-Johnstone is so articulate - informative, clear, interesting. Well done!

I never realized edwardian gowns/shirts were made with so many little pieces of different types of lace!

the yellow dress is just GORGEOUS

The edwardian dress is breathtaking. I hope this style comes back. Its so elegant and feminine.

You could make this a weekly series and I would watch as I'm sure others would as well. This was fascinating and the curator was interesting and lovely to listen to.

This was so well done! The dresses are beautiful, and I learned so much from the commentary.

That Edwardian day dress is so beautiful I very nearly cried.

Wow dress number 2 is a dream!

The 1930s Charles James piece is stunning.

The caliber of these videos from V&A is unparalleled! Just so incredibly well done, informative and thoroughly enjoyable. Thank you. 👏👏👏👏👏

It never ceases to amaze me how small people were. She looks like a giant standing next to those dresses!

Fashion history is one of my favorite things to learn about. Please do more videos about the clothing that you have in your museum. When I visited the V&A some years ago my favorite section was the clothing exhibit.

I would cheerfully listen to any aspect of fashion/garment history Curator Claire cares to discuss: she is knowledgeable, well-spoken and forthright about the problematic history of some garments' content or manufacture. The dresses themselves are wonderful, even without her commentary. And do you notice how incredibly petite the women of those earlier centuries were? Great programme, look forward to many more.

Love the classic gowns. Quite special to see that Charles James gown. His vision were simply contemporary, pretty much ahead of his time. It seems contradicting of those exsisted within the sameness era, but still retain the essence of the whole look

Charles James! THE master of structure and form. 💖

The V&A fashion collection is huge that only a small amount is on display at any one time. I saw the brown cotton wedding dress in 1965 displayed along with other wedding dresses in various colours, many of them dark.

Such beautiful dresses. I've always been fascinated by women's clothing from these time periods. I'd love to be able to try them on for at least a day. It's absolutely crazy how a single person influenced wedding attire and set the cultural norm for centuries to come. I reallyyy wish colored wedding dresses would come back into fashion in the West. I'd so love to see more variety, and just think how gorgeous it'd look.

When I saw the thumbnail for this video, I immediately assumed the 1930’s dress was a ballet costume. I had forgotten that initial impression until she said it was called La Sylphide. At which point my inner dialogue responds with, “obviously!”. Speaking of ballet, and underwear as outerwear, those arm puffs from the first dress are a mainstay of the classic ballet tutu since the 1830’s. Which is itself a take on underwear as outerwear. I never realized until this moment just how risqué the early images of the ballerina were. The ballet La Sylphide, the very work that introduced that aesthetic to the art of ballet premiered in the year 1832.