The Victorian Smear Campaign on Regency Fashion 

10k views in the first 4 days on my first long-form video 🥲🫶🏻 Thanks to all watching and commenting. I am SO grateful and currently working on my next video (mic issues resolved and will be out of this temp filming location).

Years ago I read a diary account of a ball given in London in the 1840s (I think it was at Holland House but may have been Buckingham Palace) and it was hilarious. Basically a young woman was complaining that all the women over 60 were dressed with their boobs and shoulders on display, had loads of rouge and powder on, and were basically roaring drunk. It was like reading the diary of a vegan gen Z at a boomer BBQ.😂

I think it's fascinating that no matter when the youth tend to love/gravitate to what their grandparents/elders wore in their youth.

So shaming fashion of a bygone era isn't a new thing. In 50 years, the young generation will look at the fashions of now "funny looking" " unflattering" "unattractive" And chances are they will comment about how dirty and smelling we are.

Its crazy how short the Regency was compared to the Victorian, but the haters hated on the fashion far longer than entire duration of the era.

There's a passage in "Gone With the Wind" where Scarlett is reflecting on a portrait of her grandmother (or great grandmother?) and how scandalous she was, including wetting her petticoats so her dress would stick to her legs and her body shape was shown. And plus plus boobies.

"Jane Eyre" being Regency and not Victorian is kinda blowing my mind, not gonna lie.

I'm working at an 1820s historic site right now, and so the transition from Regency silhouettes into Victorian is taking up my entire brain. Thank you for a marvelous dissection of a fascinating topic!

I was listening and when i heard "Jane Eyre is set in the Victorian period" I was all NO IT WAS NOT BLANCHE ET AL HAD TURBANS ETC and i was so relieved to hear you refute it!!!

I love how cultural context heavy this video is!! that was my favorite part to read about when I studied art history. I literally bookmarked the sources so I can devour them later.

I can never get enough of fashion history. So glad I found you!

This is fascinating… I’ve read so many “Regency Romances” in which the protagonists have values and perspectives imported from the time in which they were written (like, 90s flavoured feminist astride-riding cheroot-smoking liberated-but chaste-young women). I never realized that Charlotte Brontë did it first!

Congrats on your first long video! I enjoyed every bit of it. It's very interesting how a generation rejects the previous one in different ways. For future topic suggestions, as a music scholar, I'm interested in how you would approach the relation of fashion with opera, burlesque, and theater, from how people dressed for going to the opera to how costumes influenced fashion. Thanks for the great content!

Love the editing it's silly/funny without being over the top or distracting.

so shocked you're new to these sorts of videos, definitely earned a new subscriber!!

Also now I can't help but make the connection with the rise of AI and climate change with the rise of TradWife/Coquette/Barbie aesthetic or even the Cottage Core/Homestead aesthetics. Or if we want to go further, the return of authoritarian governments. People are scared and there are definitely signs social regression. People want to be reassured and told what to do. Young people are romanticizing the past when things were 'simpler'. I'm a young millennial (93) but I remember the late 90s/00s when there was still excitement about the future and that was reflected in futuristic fashion and in movies like Zenon and Smart House. I think we're the last recent generation of teens that were actually optimistic about the future. 💀

What a fascinating topic that I had never really considered before. I’m ashamed to admit, I’ve never read any of the Brontë’s while I’ve devoured Jane Austen. I’m making a resolution to read Jane Eyre this year. I’ve watched several biographies of the Brontë sisters last year, and I’m really interested in finally reading their body of works. I’ll go into it with the fashion history knowledge from this video. While I adore Jane Austen, Regency fashion isn’t my favorite silhouette. Bustle era and late Victorian fashion and 18th century are my favorite eras. It’s always a delight to discover that people share certain ways of thinking across time and space. To learn about the shade Victorians threw on the Regency Era, cracks me up. As far as away as those time periods can feel, people are people, aren’t they. I’m really enjoying your videos so far. Very educational and thought provoking. Great start!

Went to go binge the rest of your videos after loving this one and literally cried when i saw this was your only one 😢😢😢 pls pls pls post again as soon as you can!! Youre amazing!! ❤

im in 8th grade and i take fashion class, you talk like how our teacher talks, ima tell her to show this video! you are amazing

You’re sooooo pretty my gosh 🤪 your beauty triangle is literally diamond cut to perfection. You remind me of my pre-teen niece personality and all.

Your voice is so pretty 💕 I can’t wait to watch this I love history

Thank you for the fashion history video essay! Definitely excited for more. I like how your comparing and contrasting involved like, the social worries and values of their respective timessss

Super excited for the long form content! Looking as gorgeous as always ✨

Loved the video 💖 literally obsessed with your analysis. I was familiar with both fashion eras and read most books mentioned but literally never made the connection why the fashion had changed to be more conservative. Actually, for years I thought Regency fashion was the more recent of the two. I only learned a few years ago when I went to Victoria and Albert museum and they had a fashion timeline there but even then they didn't really explain and just said that technology advancement made it easier to get the Victorian shape. Your analysis is so much better than the guide we booked lol. Please do more of these!!! 💖

I came upon your channel just a few days ago & so glad I did! I couldn’t get enough….I immediately subscribed. I can’t get over how seamlessly you depict 60’s & 70’s (and all) vintage fashion. Your style and portrayal of the “characters” within your shorts are simply perfection … you have certainly found your calling! And now we have been blessed with your first full length video…congrats! Wishing you much success as you continue moving forward with one of the best channels I have ever watched ❤️

Loved every second of this. I love watching videos on fashion/dress history, especially while I'm sewing, it's like it's own weird version of ASMR. Please make more long vids! 💜

I love that you posted a full length video! This was very interesting and I can't wait for the next one ❤

Just now discovering you're on RU-vid, my mind is blown about Jane Eyre, I always had this set image of a "Jane Eyre" sort of dress styled in the 1840s to 1850s, but then I've never read the book.

This was so funny and really well written! a future topic could be a similar look into edwardian fashion and the transition into 1920s flapper style, i feel like there was an equivalent shift in societal values around that time, it could make another interesting video? 🩵

This was way more informational than I expected, in the best possible way 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

Keep going!! The first step in the roughest but the most important!!!

Such a great video !! very excited for another historical fashion channel in the new year, can't wait for your next one 🫶🫶

In Britain I think one of the biggest changes was the rise of Methodism- a lot of the upper middle classes and aristocracy, especially women, became Methodists in the late 1820s onwards and it led to a radical break with the perceiced amorailty/immorality of the Regency

i love this video so much! i had no idea about this phenomenon before, and I also had no idea there was scholarship about the anachronistic dress in Vanity Fair. exciting stuff!

I'm about 11 mins in s and so far I've learned that the Regency Era was the "flower children hippies" and "micromini skirts and plastic dresses" generation, while the Victorians spanned from 80s powersuits to post millenial tradwives and alpha male podcasters. Intriguing.

Love your knowledge in these matters! I think it’s important to remember that colleges and universities were about learning and not just using a degree to get a job. Thank you for educating us!

Very excited for another perspective in the fashion history & costube realm! This was a great video. Really amazed by the Regency Jane Eyre theory.

ALICIA! I was SOOOO EXCITED TO SEE THIS on my YT page! GO OFFFFFFF

love how much nuance you give to every point

Really enjoyed this! Never thought about how we think about our past shifting in this way.

i really enjoyed watching this and was surprised when you said it was your first long-form video! looking forward to more of your videos in the future!!

Can’t believe this is your first video! Girl, you snapped 😂👏

i loved this i hope you make more full length videos ❤️

I love the video, especially your analysis of Jane Eyre! Fascinating topic, I look forward to seeing more of your videos!

Excited to be here! Can't wait for your next video :)

Great first long video! Can’t wait to see what else you make. Definitely subscribing.

I loved this video down to the painting showing the coral beaded necklace. *chef's kiss*

I’m sooooo sick rn so thank you for the entertainment and education queen 😌🧡🧡🧡

This was great! Proud of you! Glad you achieved your new years resolution in the end. 😅👏

I love history but admittedly don’t know a lot about fashion history so this video was very interesting. Looking forward to more videos

This was so interesting to put on in the background while embroidering! I love listening to you talk!

So awesome! Love this content

This is amazing! I am liking, sharing, AND ringing that bell!

Thank you! That was so interesting I love content like this.

Fascinating video!! Loved it

PLESEPLEASELPEASEEEEE DO THAT VIDEO DEBUNKING MYTHS !!! btw i loved this video so much, i'm reallyreallyreallyyyy looking forward to seeing more videos like this!

Hi, great video. I love the regency period. My area of historical study is 19th British period.

*WISHING YOU LIUCK WITH THE LONG FORM VIDEOS* this seemed really well researched and presented, not a subject that fascinates me but I subscribed as I am sure you will cover subjects that DO fascinate me...!!!

Loved this! I hope you post more 😄

The transparent black corset over the long sleeve pirate shirt is such a good look that I know it’s going to be both cringeworthy and then be admired as iconic in future generations

girl ur so pretty i cant 😭(coming from a fellow girl not a creep 💀)

Love thiiis! Thanks YT for recommending!

Omg I'm usually one to find past fashion cute because I always judge it in the historical context it belongs to. Like for example, I KNOW that tribal print black and white dress was SERVING in 2012 because I had the same one. 🤣 And those patterned wedge shoes? So cute in 2013! Comfortable, would look cute with skinny jeans but adds a POP to the outfit. I know you got compliments back then!!! 😂 So that's usually my vibe when seeing outfits from the past but recently ny mom went to my old high school and sent me a photo of me in my classes grad portrait which they hang atound the school. Omg my 2011 emo-inspired side bangs and under eye black liner made me want to scratch my eyes out and die. 😂 Because I was literally like I know how these new kids see me 🙈 they're judging my ugly ass hair just like I meanly judged every graduate's from the 80s. 😭

Congrats on your first full length video! I don't think I've ever been this early to a youtuber I'm gonna love, this is very exciting for me. I don't know if this is quite in your wheelhouse or interests you, but I'm fascinated by the history of childbirth, breastfeeding, and menstruation management and how that all related to clothing. I know we've all heard that aristocratic women never breastfed, but surely SOMEONE did, right? In what eras could stays just be not laced as tightly for pregnancy/unlaced for breastfeeding and who, if anyone, had specific maternity wear? What was even going on with periods??

Amazing video ❤

would love to see the debunking myths video you mentioned. loved this!

Women going outside and touching grass for the first time in nearly a century in 1901: "Oh, it's everything I thought it would be, and more! NO, I WON'T GO BACK INTO THE PARLOR, AND YOU CAN'T MAKE ME!"

So excited this exists

Great work!

God damn, this was fascinating! 👏✨

really interesting topic and examples! i subscribed 😊 if i could suggest one technical thing, it would be great to change your mic settings or something to reduce the echo from recording in such an open space. i don't know if other people have this problem but it makes it more difficult for me at least to focus/properly take in the information when the audio is less clear. it wasn't unlistenable by any means but it would make it easier to absorb the content of the video 😊

this was such a cute vid! i’ll subscribe lol. i think you might be getting funneled all the mina lee fans haha your video was recommended to me after watching one of hers

You made that very interesting learnt something new today thank you

Really great video for your first long form one! ❤ The audio does have some echo/breaking when you raise your Voice and s-sounds are a bit sharp. Some things that could help without switching any equipment; filming in a smaller room, adding some more textiles/stuff around, changing The distance from The microphone, avoiding/monitoring Voice peaking 😊 Hoping to see More quality content like this from you 🤩

I thought I knew Jane Eyre but missed that it may have been set during the regency. That time period would make sense with Rochester as a Byronic figure...cool.

you have a very easy voice to listen to, i like the long content

your hair is so pretty. you look reminiscent of a porcelain doll

Do the debate about what time frame the Anne of Green Gables books take place.

So eloquently spoken!

You only have one fashion history video?? give us more!!

I think I am about to be your fan

Ahh yes, I fondly recall how DELICIOUSLY slutty we all were in the Regency era! Got to start bringing back some of these *lewks* in 2024!

sssooo we are pretty much living in the Victorian era with the return of the ''trad wife'' anxieties over new tech, social rigidity, and sicknesses? got it!! T_T

Very well researched Alicia, this must have taken you ages. I only watched this because your shorts (films) make me laugh and you seem fixated on the 60s and 70s. I'm not interested in fashion but found this an interesting record of the attitudes of the time and not forgetting of course that women are still repressed in many parts of the world today. It would be interesting for you to explore the fashions of the 60s and 70s along with the great music of the time. If I have one minor criticism, it's that you talk rather fast for an old geezer like me so I set the playback speed to 0.75 which was perfect. Thanks.

I've always wondered, why would women be willing to give up the comfort and ease of motion of Regency clothing for the up to 40 pounds of underwear worn by upper-class Victorian women just before the advent of the cage crinoline. The only explanation I've ever come up with is, "Conspicuous consumption." It's interesting to learn that the next generation actually found Regency clothing indecent. Aesthetically, the Regency era isn't my favorite, but I cannot deny how practical the clothing was. The most practical Western women's clothing since the supportive kirtle, in my opinion.

"This is gonna get a little bit long" Cut to me watching a 4 hour video on a kids cartoon from the early 2000's that ive never even watched

i have no interest in Fashion but i watched the entire video. you're so easy to listen to.

Long form fashion history yes yes yes 🫶🏻

Happy to watch anything you've already got in the queue, but if you're looking for brainstorming ideas, I would love a discussion of the forces at work in retro fashion. I was very interested in your comments on the return to Regency styles for young girls after the Victorians vilified them for adult women in previous decades. I'm thinking of the revival of Art Nouveau and Medieval references in the 1960's and the Neo-Victorian elements of the 1980s. What drives aesthetics to return and why do we take some elements (00's ultra low rise) and leave others behind (00's being orange)?

Impressive research, thank you for this different and interesting perspective. We are always poking fun of old styles....just looking back on the 1980s is cringe-worthy for those of us who lived through it... of course all generations will have done this.

There must have been a couple people at least who dampened their skirts - but I figure it's like tight lacing. A few dumb young women (dumb mainly because they were young) did it, but now most people assume it was all women

❤ The vintage fashion is my vibe!

You said the adaptations of Jane Eyre tend to go for the Victorian publication date for costuming inspiration. But hearing you talk so much about Vanity Fair made me wonder what you make of the costumes in the 2004 film - did they follow Regency or Victorian style or neither?

No bc Jane Eyre is one of my fav books ever and I ALWAYS pictured the mid 1800s 😮😮😮😮

❤

I’m only a quarter of the way through so far but I had to chime in. I hadn’t ever considered the fact that the Romantic Era, with all its gothic silliness and commercialized superstition, was a backlash against the Enlightenment. As baffling as the phenomenon may be, it seems we are prone to this persistant pattern. One might say our society is immersed in a period of intellectual backslide in the wake of a protracted modern enlightenment with the current rise in pseudoscience and nationalism. Much like the ways in which intellectual advancements of the 18th century were accompanied by loosening restrictions in fashion, the restrictions restored by the Victorians were progressively loosened back up as technology advanced throughout the 20th century. It makes me curious how the current rise in culturally regressive politics will impact fashion in the decades to come.

All this condemnation must have been bizarre for Regency women as they got older and fashions changed. I wonder if this is how ex-flappers felt when seeing their daughters and granddaughters grow up in the fifties.

I love your hair and your face and your voice. I'm writing this comment in the first minute of watching. :)

*you naming the things you didn't like* Me: well at least you look beautiful no matter what. I on the other hand always look like a dead baboon or seagull 💀 no offense to baboons and seagulls☝

よくわからないけど！そのとおり😊