French Fashions – 1874

Victorian Boating Costumes and Early Bustle Countryside Fashion

This charming hand-colored fashion plate from “Journal des Demoiselles” captures the elegant leisurewear and outdoor boating costumes worn by high-society women in the early 1870s. Set against a picturesque riverside landscape with a wooden rowboat, the figure on the left wears a vibrant teal day dress featuring a highly structured bustle overskirt with fringed trims and pleated horizontal tiers. Beside her, a companion stepping into the boat displays a sophisticated cream walking dress uniquely accented with vertical magenta stripes, matching silk bows down the front bodice, and a delicate bouquet of wildflowers.

Analysis of Early 1870s Tournure Silhouettes and Outdoor Millinery

For historical dressmakers and theatrical wardrobe designers, this illustration provides excellent documentation of the fully realized bustle or tournure silhouette. The teal gown showcases how fabric volume became entirely concentrated at the back, cascading into decorative puffed layers supported by interior wire or horsehair crinolines. The inclusion of small, forward-tilted straw hats adorned with intricate floral wreaths, trailing velvet ribbons, and upright lace inserts highlights the dramatic shift in millinery trends that complemented the elongated, vertical lines of early 1870s resort and country fashion.