A review by ghostlydreamer
A Victorian Lady's Guide to Fashion and Beauty by Mimi Matthews

3.0

Certainly an excellent guide to Victorian fashion, beauty, and haircare, I won't dispute that. It's a comprehensive guide that, on one hand, was easily tailored to beginners because it covers a lot of material in immense detail. But on the other, I feel like the reader was expected to know some things prior, such as the terminology, in order to understand the details we're being given. I think more illustrations would have been helpful to demonstrate the onslaught of descriptions the author gives us. Sometimes I just didn't know what they were talking about, and a picture to accompany it would have been nice so I didn't have to break away and Google it instead.

But apart from that, this was a very informative read and fairly quick as well. I had no idea Victorian fashion varied so much, but it makes sense given how long the era lasted. And even now, trendy fashion can change drastically from one decade to another, so it only made sense that what was considered proper or trendy back then changed frequently as well. There is no one standard Victorian outfit. And while I knew many of their beauty and haircare ideas were absurd, this book still managed to shock me with some of the remedies the Victorians thought WORKED.

Anyway, a decent guide to Victorian era fashion, so I'd recommend it if that's something you're interested in learning more about.