“To Be Tormented For Nothing But Their Fancies”:
Fashion’s Negative Effects on Women and
Animals in the Victorian Era
The visually appealing title Black Beauty not only describes the physical magnificence of its narrator, it brings to attention the strength and influence of Victorian aesthetics on certain members of its society. Aesthetic ideals in Victorian fashion had particularly detrimental results on second-class citizens in society, most notably women and animals. Although Anna Sewell may have never intended for Black Beauty to be interpreted as an allegory for female oppression, abuse, and suffering in Victorian society, her accounts of animal exploitation bear striking comparisons to the degrading treatment of women, especially in the field of fashion. Painful, unnecessary, and oftentimes harmful clothing was regarded as de rigueur for both animals and female members of Victorian society, often excused as fulfilling some important societal function. Despite Victorian moralizing on the benefits of certain articles of clothing, garments such as the bearing rein and the corset were actually damaging to the health, movement, comfort, duties, and overall quality of life for women and animals.
The pain and cruelty fashion caused in Victorian society mainly affected animals and women. In Black Beauty, the main character details his first experience with all of the “new things to wear.”[1] He describes this experience in predominately negative terms: the crupper is “nasty” and “stiff”;[2] the horseshoes are “very stiff and heavy”;[3] the bit and bridle are “nasty”;[4] and, the saddle feels “queer.”[5] True to his meek, submissive nature, Black Beauty’s euphemism for this raiment is “unpleasant business”, and his excuse for his submission is his good breeding.[6] Although this statement comments on the conformity of the upper crust to the stringent Victorian class system, it also illuminates an aspect about the definition of an animal’s importance in that society: horses, and other animals, were highly regarded only when they were serving humans in some way. Fashion allowed simultaneous control of animals and adherence to Victorian aesthetic norms.
The female fashions of the Victorian era were similarly unpleasant, if not downright torturous. The epitome of women’s Victorian fashion, the corset, shrank the waist to miniature proportions by being “well-stiffened with whalebone” and featuring hardy metal eyelets for lacing.[7] Busks made from steel or bone were inserted in the front of the corset and down the length of it as a front-flattening panel. Garters “cut fierce red lines” into the skin,[8] bustles weighed down the body and prevented comfortable movement and seating, and crinoline skirts were “lined and stiffened” with horsehair and sometimes steel.[9] Carrying all of this “insupportable bulk” were narrow, high-heeled boots.[10] Despite the agonizing and uncomfortable clothing forced on Victorian women, they were expected to appear graceful and refined; complaining about garments that were viewed as necessary for aesthetic appeal or eschewing them altogether would result in fierce opposition and criticism from other members of society, sometimes even resulting in complete ostracization. In this manner, fashion was used as a tool to control women’s social behavior and to prevent them from violating oppressive Victorian standards.
All of the above accoutrements were regarded as important for function in society or as necessary for correcting some inherent flaw. For Black Beauty, uncomfortable, unnatural items like horseshoes and a saddle are necessary to service humans economically and to easily access roads and towns. Without them, he, as an animal, cannot fulfill his use to humans, resulting in a loss of value. The worthlessness of animals that have lost their economic value is made apparent by Nicholas Skinner’s business philosophy: “My plan is to work ‘em [sic] as long as they’ll go, and then sell ‘em [sic] for what they’ll fetch.”[11] In this case, garments are used by humans to exploit animals for economic gain. These items of clothing, which men use to “improve upon Nature and mend what God has made”, were also purported to have a correcting function.[12] Captain Langley, a friend of Squire Gordon, uses the bearing rein on his horses in order to “hold their heads up”;[13] his statement implies that there is some real or useful need for keeping their heads raised. In reality, Black Beauty (as well as the other horses) pulls his loads much more easily when he is free to “put down [his] head.”[14] From these examples, it is obvious that instead of fulfilling a helpful function, as some proposed, fashion had debilitating and unnecessary effects on the bodies upon which it was forced.
Excruciating fashionable clothing for women was also regarded as essential in Victorian society for the purpose of social rank distinction and marriage choices. The corrective function of the corset, with its body-enhancing results, was intertwined with female success and survival. The shape of a corseted body signified what class a woman belonged to, and the woman who “conformed to particular standards of beauty...secure[d] a good marriage.”[15] Technically, the function of the corset is to “promote sexual attractiveness”, especially to “attract an appropriate marriage partner.”[16] Obtaining a husband, especially a wealthy one, was one of the few stable, accepted paths for women in Victorian society. Without the body shape that a corset helped achieve, a woman was described as “very slovenly”[17] and not as likely to obtain an “upwardly mobile” marriage.[18] Like the bearing rein, the corset was considered as something that corrected the shape or form of the body, as well as the mind.
The general belief in fashion’s corrective function stems from the inferior social positions of women and animals in Victorian society. Even though he is male, Black Beauty embodies the ideal female temperament: he displays docility and toleration of atrocious acts upon his body, he is completely submissive to his masters’ treatment, and he accepts the fact that “men are the strongest.”[19] He represents the Victorian feminine ideal, or ‘angel in the house’, a chaste, self-sacrificing, slavishly dutiful wife. This feminine ideal was only complete with the addition of proper Victorian garb, including the corset, which was thought to “arrest the potentially unruly and recalcitrant female mind”,[20] forming it into something acceptable to Victorian standards of purity and obedience.
Despite
the Victorian attitudes about the improving function of certain attire, some
fashions actually impaired important natural functions for both the animal and
the woman. For Sir Oliver, Black Beauty’s friend at
In the preceding anecdote about chopping off puppy ears and tails, Sir Oliver angrily suggests that humans should disfigure their own children instead of other animals’ children. Although not as bloodily, Victorians had their own way of disfiguring their female children: the juvenile corset. Other than being a painful, uncomfortable device, the juvenile corset restricted female children’s socialization, curiosity, and other childhood experiences by “completely destroy[ing] their freedom of movement.”[24] Articles by dress reformers and feminists proved that “clothing that constricts the waist interferes with breathing and digestion.”[25] Like the puppies with their unnaturally shaped ears and tail, the bodies of female children during the Victorian era were agonizingly molded into artificial shapes for the sake of conforming to popular notions of beauty. The early mutilation of the female body displays how Victorians favored aesthetic values over health and normalcy.
Today,
outrage and disbelief are our likely reactions to the deliberate maiming and
disfiguration of human and animal bodies for nothing more than the achievement
of a narrow meaning of beauty. And although the political and social situations
of women and animals have greatly improved, our condemnation of cruel Victorian
aesthetics is mostly ironic. Women no longer deform their figures with corsets
and bustles; instead, the dangerous yet thriving plastic surgery industry is
the new ‘cure’ for the supposed defects of the female body. On the animal
front, teacup breeds, which are tiny varieties of larger breeds of dogs, are
some of the most popular and expensive dogs available now despite the bundle of
health problems associated with their small structure; cropping of ears and
tails is still a legal and accepted practice in the
Word count: 1,531
URL: https://webspace.utexas.edu/rls963/Victorian%20Paper%202.htm?uniq=f6x7nd
List of Illustrations:
1. Horseshoe: http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://jenlars.mu.nu/horseshoe.jpg&imgrefurl=http://jenlars.mu.nu/archives/2005_01.html&h=302&w=274&sz=9&hl=en&start=8&um=1&tbnid=6dfPlb4oJUm8IM:&tbnh=116&tbnw=105&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dhorseshoe%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26sa%3DN;
Victorian shoes:
http://artfiles.art.com/images/-/La-Moniteur/Selection-of-Victorian-Shoes-and-Boots-for-Men-and-Women-Giclee-Print-C12371353.jpeg
2. Example of Bearing Rein: http://www.lexiqueducheval.net/images/attelages/enrenement%20trotteur12.jpg
Example of a more comfortable and practical rein:
http://www.cowboyshowcase.com/images/glossary/two-rein2.jpg
3. Example of a Corset: http://www.hourglasscostumes.com/images/custom%20linen%20and%20silk%20corset.jpg
Corset’s effect:
aura.zaadz.com/photos/2/13872/large/corset.bmp
4. Child’s corset:
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.corsetsandcrinolines.com/timelinepix/1900/pic17.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.corsetsandcrinolines.com/timelineitem.php%3Findex%3D190042&h=379&w=366&sz=18&hl=en&start=2&um=1&tbnid=5SZpOwwKyXRIYM:&tbnh=123&tbnw=119&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dchild%2Bcorset%26ndsp%3D18%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26sa%3DN
Puppy with cropped ears:
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.indiananoonshine.com/images/DobermansPhotoAlbum/NikitaTapedEarsA20Nov07.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.indiananoonshine.com/DobermanPhotoAlbum.html&h=300&w=400&sz=13&hl=en&start=236&um=1&tbnid=hOKyhXSknaneaM:&tbnh=93&tbnw=124&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dpuppies%2Bcropped%2Bears%26start%3D234%26ndsp%3D18%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26sa%3DN