Spanish Fashions – Autumn 1881

Two women stand on a sandy beach, near a grassy bank. The woman on the left wears a black hat with pink plumes. She has a large black bow tied at the back of her hair at the neck, and wears small earrings. Her dress is gray green and pink changeant, or iridescent, fabric. The dress has a narrow standing collar, with a masculine style turn over at the front, and a white ruffle inside.

The bodice buttons down the center front with round buttons to the hip. The sleeves are short with some gathering at the top, and she wears long tan gloves that reach the sleeve hems. The dress has a small panel of smocking at the side waist, where the skirt is gathered up from the front into draping at the side and back. The underskirt is yellow, red, and tan narrow vertical stripes. The overskirt is lined with the same stripes, and is folded back asymmetrically from the side front. The pleating at the hem is folded to resemble a row of bows.

She holds a closed fan in her right hand. The woman on the right wears a straw hat with white lace hanging down from the brim. The hat is trimmed with pink roses and white plumes. Her dress is white lace with a high collar and three-quarter sleeves. There are four rows of ruffles at her collar and sleeve hems. The skirt is in three tiers; the top tier is apron style gathered to the back and edged with bobble fringe; the next two tiers are white scalloped edged lace with a final white pleated tier. The upper tier is puffed out at the back in the fashionable bustled silhouette, and ends with a hanging section, knotted together at knee level, like a drapery.

She wears a black ribbon tied around her neck with ends hanging to below her waist, and holds an open fan in her left hand. Behind the women on the grassy rise is a man in gray reading a paper and a second man reclining on his elbow. Nearer the water is a bearded man in a white suit, holding a boater hat in his hands, a woman in pink and white with a white hat holding a fan, and a girl in white with a blue hat holding the woman’s hand.

Credit: The Claremont Colleges