The Mauve Decade

As mentioned in my post about materials on offer at Woolcrest, I have been thinking more about the colours available to women in the 1890s. The film footage shows pale colours, and the images of Paris fashions, which would have led popular taste, are often in brighter, more pastel hues.

In order to make my own contribution after our bloomer making workshop with MA Fashion students here in the Goldsmiths Design department, I decided to take on the challenge myself – researching the materials available, and then embarking on making my own pair of bloomers. I am keen to make the full bloomers which would have been worn alone – sans skirt.

Mauve

I am interested in investigating Mauveine (1856). Mauve was talked about in relation to new forms of cycle wear, which reflects the innovations happening in Victorian aniline dyes (also responsible for indigo, whose history, on a tangent includes the way women adopted ‘mens’ blue jeans socially and as they moved into the workplace) such as the first synthetic dye. William Henry Perkin’s patented Mauveine (invented 1856 and manufactured in london from 1857) closely followed by Fuchsin pink (1958-9) and  a range of reds, violets and greens.

The 1890s was known as The Mauve Decade, or the Gay Nineties as characterised by its social prosperity. Analine Purple when first dyed was extremely bright and visible-  a happy colour and the perfect signifier for both radical and artisically inclined dressers who wanted to be noticed but also socially mobile and upper class women, not least because of Queen Victoria’s regular appearances – to The Great Exhibition for example – in Mauve. We are interested in exploring some strong colours for our collection – though analine mauveine dulls with age, any samples we’ll see won’t reflect its true bright colour when first produced.

The Reproduction and printing press.

Another reason why using a colour found on the Penny Lilac Stamp is so interesting to me is the idea of mass production. The parallel life of mauveine as a fabric dye and as a new technology for print reproduction proceeding the press also renders it as a kind of proto xerox, so after a few days helping produce a batch of identical bloomers in workshops, mauve as a signifier of re-production seems the most perfect material to be working with now, in reference to the process.

…in the making…