Discover dresses that will impress

ELDREDS sale of Collectors’ Items on April 27 includes a wonderful collection of fashion from Victorian times through to the 1950’s.

One of the most statuesque items is a late Victorian black sateen corset, ‘The Heliotype’, heavily boned to achieve that fashionable hour-glass figure. The corset was an essential item of clothing for any self-respecting woman in the late 1800’s, despite its restrictions to movement and was worn by all levels of society.

The fashion was to round the bust and hips whilst keeping the waist long and lean, curvaceous.

For the dress reformists of the time the corset represented a dangerous moral ‘evil’, promoting promiscuous views of female bodies. The obvious health risks, including damaged and rearranged internal organs, compromised fertility, weakness, and general depletion of health were blamed on excessive corsetry. However, women from all classes wore corsets, indeed, a woman not wearing corsetry was thought to be ‘loose’. Fashion was made by the upper class and followed, as far as possible by the ‘lower echelons’ of society.

The massive bell-shaped crinolines had, by the late 1800’s disappeared to be replaced by bustles, the feminine outline becoming flatter in the front and exaggerated to extraordinary proportions at the back. To achieve this shape, the ‘lobster tail’ bustle was devised, a cascade of small hoops which folded, concertina-like, when the wearer sat down. One such bustle will be sold in the Eldreds sale and is presently ensconced on a mannequin supporting a late Victorian silk dress, also in the sale.

Other vintage clothing in Eldreds sale includes a collection of evening and day wear from the 1950’s and many pieces as wearable today as they were in the ‘50’s.

O, OO and HO gauge railway has always proved popular and a large single-owner collection of railway has been consigned in this collectors’ sale. This includes the diminutive N gauge which has the advantage that, being nearly half the size of OO and HO gauge, it allows layouts to be built taking up less space, and, incidentally, is considered compatible with the 1:44 scale for miniature wargaming.

A good collection of boxed Dinky Toys has recently been consigned and will add to the ever-growing selection in the sale on April 27.

For further information, or to consign items, please contact Liz Voce at Eldreds on 01752 721199 or enquiries@ eldreds.net.

Victorian fashion items