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The 1700's
Throughout the century, women kicked it up a notch. Hair gor bigger, dresses got wider, and everything got glitzier. The pannier gown started out as a floor length, form fitting gown. Of course, it got wider, and wider, until it was about 6 feet wide. -
women communicate clothing information
Throughout the 1790s, women relay cutting and styling information for clothing through fashion plates, miniature garments made for dressmaker's dolls, descriptive letters, and copies of other items of clothing -
The 1800's
At the beginning of the century, high waisted gowns, low, square necklines, and puffed sleeves were in style. -
Godey's Lady's Book Praises French Fashion
The women's magazine Godey's Lady's Book launches in the U.S. and becomes a very popular periodical. It includes dress illustrations in each issue and defers to France as the center of fashion trends. -
Mormons Denounce Fornication Pants
During the 1830s, men's pants are first tailored with buttons visible down the front of the fly. Mormon leader Brigham Young discourages people from wearing them, calling them "fornication pants -
Charles Goodyear Discovers Rubber Vulcanization
While searching for a way to keep rubber from melting in hot weather, Charles Goodyear develops the vulcanization process. Vulcanization allows latex fibers to stretch and then contract; the new technique paves the way for not only tires but also prophylactic condoms, elastic fabrics, and more comfortable corsets -
Petticoats Alarm Social Critics
A new petticoat style becomes vogue in the 1840s; women's skirts take on a bell shape with the addition of several heavy layers of petticoats extending from a tightly corseted waist. The new style sparks considerable controversy, as the extra skirt layers imply a degree of decadence and materialism that alarms many social critics who think that women should assume a simpler, more pious way of life. -
Levi Strauss adds back pockets
Levi Strauss adds two back pockets to its denim jeans. -
First department stores
The era of the department store begins with the opening of Le Bon Marché in Paris. American versions soon follow in the 1860s, emerging out of the dry goods stores that sold fabric throughout the antebellum era. A. T. Stewart in New York and Jordan Marsh and Company in Boston are among the first department stores to open in the United States. -
Hoop skirt developed
In the mid-1850s, the fashion industry devises the cage crinoline or hoop skirt as a more lightweight alternative to the heavy layers of petticoats that women have been wearing in order to achieve the stylish bell-shaped-skirt. Cage crinoline employs a retractable metal frame that women can wear beneath their skirts, and its added mobility enables its widespread use by a larger cross-section of women, including those who labor in agriculture and factories. -
First synthetic dye is created
This made it to where you could synthetically dye fabric -
Early bra was invented
Luman Chapman, of Camden, New Jersey, patents a corset substitute: the "breast supporter." Designed with "breast puffs" and elastic shoulder straps to reduce friction against the breasts, Camden's invention—an early forerunner of the bra—provides a more comfortable and healthy alternative to the constricting Victorian corset. -
Abba Gould Woolson Promotes Ready-to-Wear Clothing
Reformer Abba Gould Woolson presses for ready-to-wear fashions in place of custom-made clothing, which consumes women's time and labor in order to cut and sew. -
Hourglass Silhouette in Fashion
Elongated female bodies come into fashion during the 1880s, and previous inventions like Olivia Flynt's breast supporter are rendered unfashionable because they do not reduce the waistline to produce an hourglass silhouette. -
Bloomingdale's mail order catalogs
The New York department store Bloomingdale's begins to send out mail-order catalogs. -
Breast Supporters Replace Corsets
As women's health care and work change with the turn of the twentieth century, the breast supporter gradually supplants the corset as the preferred undergarment. Regional firms begin selling breast supporters by mail order, usually for about $1. Breast supporters are sold by bust measurement, from 30 to 45. -
Levi 501 Jeans Born
Levi Strauss begins assigning lot-numbers to each of its products, and the number 501 is given to copper-riveted overalls, thus creating the iconic "Levi's 501 jean. -
US navy introduces T-Shirt
The U.S. Navy introduces the precursor to the T-shirt, a "light undershirt" that includes an "elastic collarette on the neck opening. -
closed-crotch underwear in fashion
Women have transitioned from the nineteenth-century standard of open-crotch underwear to the new closed-crotch style. -
underwire debuts in bra
Underwire first appears in a strapless bra design by André, a custom firm.
