1800's Fashion Timeline: 1855-1867

By this time, ladies were wearing layer upon layer of petticoats to attain an almost unattainable fullness to their skirt. It was inevitable that something must be done to help shed those layers. As soon as the wire hoop skirt was invented, ladies snatched at it and corded petticoats 'died a sudden death'.

I wouldn't say that the overall fashion changed, other than for day dresses, large sleeves with an unattached undersleeve was popular, like the ones below. The one on the bottom is shown without the undersleeves.

This ball dress to me definitely reads 1850's, but note that it is with a hoop.

In America, something called the zouve jacket became very popular. Hooray for America coming up with it's own fashions! Anyway, it was a jacket that was worn over a fitted white blouse, although it wasn't called a blouse, but a 'body'. It often had braid that was similar to the trim on military uniforms (keep in mind that 1860-1865 was the Civil war).

During the 1860's, all of the fullness was slowly moving more towards the back. This gave the ladies the appearance that they were perpetually gliding, or to me it does. It is pretty, but by the end of the hoop era (1865-67) the dresses were quite flat in  the front. Not really my favorite, but oh well. The dress below is very pretty, but see how flat it is in the front? It just doesn't look so balanced to me.