Women's fashions, hairstyles, and cosmetics changed a great deal during the Victorian era (between 1840-1900). If you're interested in learning about the various fashion dos and don'ts of a stylish Victorian lady, this is sure to be a book you'll enjoy.

This is so quaint and sweet, I love it. The illustrations of fashion and culture throughout the years is so neat. I have long held a fascination with Victorian times and everything related to them, so this book was a really fun read for me. It made me super grateful that I am able to slip on a pair of jeans!

This book provided an interesting account of Victorian fashions over several decades. I enjoyed the illustrations as they gave life to the very detailed descriptions.
I would have liked more historical context which I feel would have given the book more depth.

Women's fashions, hairstyles, and cosmetics changed a great deal during the Victorian era (between 1840-1900). If you're interested in learning about the various fashion dos and don'ts of a stylish Victorian lady, this is sure to be a book you'll enjoy.

Beautifully illustrated and well researched, Mimi Matthews book, A Victorian Lady's Guide to Fashion and Beauty, will tell you everything you wanted to know about fashions of this time period. Sorted by decade, the complete ensemble—dresses, underwear, outerwear, footwear, hats, accessories, and jewelry—is described in minute detail in the first part of the book. I was fascinated with the description of each garment, but I would often stop reading for a moment in order to gaze at the illustrations.

The second part deals with fashion etiquette (what to where, and when). Fashionable ladies wore a morning/at home dress, walking dress, afternoon/visiting dress, dinner dress, and (presumably only for special occasions) an evening dress or ball gown. That's a minimum of four dresses worn per day! It wears me out just thinking about it. The rest of this section is sorted in sub-sections for riding habits, holiday fashions, and sportswear, as well as proper clothing for marriage, maternity, and mourning.

The final portion of the book, part three, is devoted to beauty. Victorian hair care, hairstyles and hairdressing, skin care, and cosmetics. The hairstyles of the period were every bit as elaborate as the clothing, requiring a skillful set of hands and eventually false hair to result in a trendy 'do. Common ingredients used for skin care included arsenic, mercury, and lime. (Yikes! I think I'll stick with Noxema.)

It was a lot of fun reading about the trends of that long ago time. As much as I love the fashions, I have to say I'm glad to be alive now rather than then!

I received an advance reading copy of this book courtesy of Pen & Sword History via Netgalley.

Great little book concerning everything to do with lady's fashion during the Victorian era.

The first part is a very methodical overview of the key points of fashion per decade, it is rather list-like and therefore gets a bit tedious, but I guess this would work if you want to use this as a reference book. The changes in dress through the century are addressed in detail, however I think it could do with more pictures. For one because I love those old fashion prints, but also because it can be challenging at times to imagine which fringe goes where. It helps if you have a generous helping of BBC costume drama on the side.

Part II and III were actually more interesting, because they go into specific situatons and circumstances as well as beauty products. Part II features riding habits, beachwear, sportswear, and dresses for weddings, maternity and mourning. Part III goes into hair care, hair styles, skin care, and cosmetics.

I really enjoyes it, but there are 2 but's for me:
-lack of pictures
-It would have been nice to also have an idea about how the lower classes dressed and how high fashion trickled down to the servant uniforms. I know the clue is in the title, it's a LADY's guide, but I'm curious.

Well this is wonderful, I am a huge fan of Mimi Matthews work, whether that be her beautifully poignant romances, or her well researched actual pieces, like this. I will admit that as soon as I heard about A Victorian Ladies Guide to Fashion and Beauty, I was fascinated by it and I was jumping for pure when I got the opportunity to review it.

This is the perfect reference book for those interested in Victorian fashion and beauty, set out in different sections throughout the book it covers every aspect of what a Victorian lady would have worn and her beauty regime from 1840 to 1890. Ms Matthews covered everything you would ever want to know about, from under-garments, day/evening wear and shoes to cleansing soaps, hair removal and hair styling.

Every aspect of a ladies, day when they change, and why is written in clear and precise detail from which piece of clothing they would wear for what occasion, who would be able to wear what, Ms Matthews has even covered the fabric and colours that would have been used. And I do have to say that, I love how very gothic the Victorian era was in their clothing.

My favourite part is the Victorian Beauty part, I always knew that their cosmetics were at times perilous for the health. Some of what they used to do, to keep that perfect porcelain complexion is mind blowing plus quite bizarre and worry-some that Victorian ladies were so obsessed that they were happy to put quick lime on their faces and even use electricity to combat some normal issues.

This is such a great read, brilliantly researched and fabulously engrossing. I love how much detail Ms Matthews has added to each part, her passion for the era is obvious and another thing I love is how she has sprinkled the whole book with passages and extracts from genuine articles and periodicals from the time.

I cannot recommend this enough, for anyone who loves their fashion history and Victorian’s then this is a must read

This was very informative but it got really dull really fast. I just wasn't expecting it to actually just be about what victorian fashion standards.

This is a very well-researched book and I can tell that the author really enjoyed the topic and writing it. At times I found it a bit overwhelming, but the illustrations and photos really helped to see exactly what the fashions she was describing looked like. Fashion was much more complicated then, and it must have been exhausting to try to keep up with what to wear and when to wear it!

Considering all the differences between Victorian fashion and today's fashion, I was expecting something that was more...well, juicy? Instead, it was a fairly straightforward list of "They wore this and this is what it looked like." Well-done for what it set out to do, but not what I expected.

This book provides an overview of women's fashion in England between 1840 to 1900. The author used information and quotes from 19th century beauty books, fashion magazines, and lady's journals. She also included some fashion plates. I'm not familiar with the fashion terms of the period. I would have enjoyed more illustrations or more detailed descriptions for commonly used words describing parts of the dress or accessories, but I still found the book very interesting and informative.

The first part of the book described the fashionable dress styles (and their underpinnings), hats, shoes, cloaks, gloves, jewelry, and such during each decade and how the fashions changed. The author also talked about how changes in society and technology caused changes in fashions.

Then the author discussed the various dresses that were worn: the morning dress, walking dress, afternoon dress, dinner dress, evening dress or ball gown. She talked about changes in riding habits, seaside holiday dresses, bathing costumes, sports wear (for lawn tennis, golf, and cycling), wedding dresses, maternity dress, and mourning dresses during the Victorian period. She also described beauty advice and attitudes, from soap and cold creams for the face to hair care and hairstyles to cosmetic usage (face powder, cheek rouge, lip rouge, perfumes, etc.).

An interesting, but very basic look into the fashion and lifestyle of women during the Victorian era. Decades of fashion is explained and supported with plenty of examples, such as the fashion etiquette of the day. I loved reading about the ways women washed and styled their hair in this time period. I will say, you really learn to appreciate the advancements in cosmetics and beauty supplies after finishing this book. 3.5 stars.

I received an ARC of this book from the publisher and NetGalley for my honest review.

A Victorian Lady's Guide to Fashion and Beauty was a delightful and informative read. Taking fashion and beauty in separate sections, the chapters moved from decade to decade, outlining the major fashions and changes during that period. The illustrations were helpful to demonstrate the different styles. If anything, I might have liked to have seen a few more included. Overall, though, this is a nicely presented, easy to read, quick guide to Victorian women's fashion, which will be of interest to history buffs and of great use to writers of historical fiction.

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A Victorian Lady's Guide to Fashion and Beauty is a great introductory book to the world of Victorian primping. Clothing, hairstyles, and accessories are discussed decade by decade, and then by what was appropriate for different occasions. Hair and skin care are looked at, as well as cosmetics. Makes me realize that while I admire the beautiful clothing, I certainly wouldn't want to live in that era!

A decent but extremely simple account of Victorian fashion and beauty. I was expecting a much more detailed contextual narrative (in part because the author claimed I would get this in the introduction), so the fact that the majority of the book is organized in something that I can only describe as One Step Beyond List Format was disappointing.

Still, it's accurate to the best of my knowledge, and the illustrations are excellent. I can't recommend it as historical narrative due to poor readability, but I like it as an addition to one's reference collection, and I also respect the author's attention to detail.

A very good book, well written and well researched. It's full of interesting facts and clear explenation of how the Victiorian fashion worked.
The illustration are very good. The book is really entertaining.
Highly recommended!
Many thanks to Pen & Sword and Netgalley for this ARC

Istruttivo e incantevole insieme: l'incredibile varietà di mode e stili del (lunghisssimo!) periodo vittoriano vengono spiegati con chiarezza, e le meravigliose illustrazioni di moda arricchiscono un volume già splendido di per sé.

The book was a thorough and readable guide to Victorian high fashion. I would have liked to know more about the sources the author drew on - where were they published, who read them, were there differences between Britain and the US? It would also have been useful to know just what proportion of the population were actually able to afford the clothes described in the book.