Adorable Victorian Dress

[BStankman]

Adding to the strange traditions of

Post Mortem photography Is General Robert E. Lee dead in this 1865 photo?

And women reenacting the Civil War American Civil War a Photographic History

Post Morten photography is explained to us as economics.
Photography was expensive and often the death photo was only one a family had.

If that was the case, how do we explain these Victorians?
Are these people getting dressed up in their best for the special occasion of being photographed?
Or are these well off people of means taking comical photos?

These Vintage Photos of Victorian Era Drag Queens Will Knock Your Corsets Off!

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And subjecting their children to this.

Adorable Tintypes Show What Teenage Girls Often Wore From Between the 1850s and 1870s ~ vintage everyday

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I used to attribute of lot of old photos to people having different standards of beauty prior to the era of photography.
But I am not so sure anymore. Even the poorest of people would have access to idealized images of beauty at church.

Disclaimer, parts of this post were inspired by a youtuber with a very low view count TheTruthSeeker69

 

[Ice Nine]

Who am I to judge, but I think the use of the word "adorable" in regards to most of those teenage girls is a bit of a stretch. One reason the girls might look so, well not happy, if they had to stand still for very long it might have been very hard to keep a smile plastered on your face.

 

[MinLo66]

Apparently, according to the photos and info in this article cross-dressing was a "thing" at the turn of the century. Here we find Harvard and University of Dublin students, famous authors, as well as renowned French artist Henri Toulouse-Latrec posing in drag:

Dressing in drag around the turn of the 20th century

I suspect cross-dressing has probably always been popular amongst the Liberal Elite Ruling Class...it is explained away as "satirical" here, but I would imagine since they were doing it out in public or in the open it was to put their "progressivism" and "cultural superiority" on display for The Masses as well as to provide a little shock and awe for the conservative Christians they have always despised.

 

[UnusualBean]

I think I found Tobey Maguire's great great grandma

Anyway, most of the outfits in those cross dressing photos look pretty expensive and well tailored, so it probably was mostly rich people. That said, I don't think photography was nearly as expensive as we're led to believe. Maybe when it first got rolled out on a large scale sure, but by the time they got exposure times down to a few seconds most people probably would've been able to afford portraits from time to time.

 

[BStankman]

I suspect cross-dressing has probably always been popular amongst the Liberal Elite Ruling Class...it is explained away as "satirical" here, but I would imagine since they were doing it out in public or in the open it was to put their "progressivism" and "cultural superiority" on display for The Masses as well as to provide a little shock and awe for the conservative Christians they have always despised.

That would explain why corsets are high technology, and who actually uses them.

Corsets as high technology

 

[whitewave]

Lower left corner says copyright 2013. There are places that have costumes of this era for you to take pictures like this. Costs around $20.00 when I had one done. Posed as a gunslinger. My sister posed as a saloon hussy.