French Fashions – Winter 1871

Late Victorian Bow Bells Magazine Interior Fashion Plate

This original February 1871 hand-colored engraving from the Bow Bells Ladies Supplements illustrates Paris fashions designed for the affluent nineteenth-century European market. The antique print displays an intimate indoor scene set within a private library, capturing the structured early bustle silhouettes, heavy drapery, and detailed trimmings that characterized upper-class Victorian morning dresses.

Historical Library Day Costumes and Early Bustle Gowns

The woman on the left reaches for a book on a shelf wearing a grey taffeta gown accented with bright green fringed swags, rosettes, and open pagoda sleeves. Beside her, a seated companion leans toward a reading table wearing a long black lace-trimmed mantle over a vibrant tiered blue silk skirt and an ornate matching blue veil headpiece.