Fashion is always looking forward, darlings – so the new year is as good a time as any to update one’s wardrobe, so make your appointments with the modiste now. Our resident fashion diviners have described all the must have silhouettes and styles to see you perfectly prepared for 1894!

Sleeves: So Big They’re Full of Secrets

If you want a body like an hourglass, you’ll need three things: a tight corseted waist; a full, open, bell-shaped skirt; and sleeves to balance the top half out. Sleeves puffed up like hot air balloons, preferably. They should be wide at the top and tapered more tightly to the wrist and elbow. Loosely draped capes and cloaks are preferable to shawls and coats to go with them, so the shapeliness can still be seen. If you haven’t the funds to pay for extra yards of fabric, just dig out your mother’s dresses from the 1830s, because gigot sleeves are back. And if gentlemen mutter about their monstrosity, well, it’s just because they allow a lady a little more personal space... and are useful for buffeting people away in a crowd. It will be a miserable business indeed to be the one girl at the party with sad drooping shoulders.

Headwear: A Feather For Your Cap

Renowned millinery seer, Miss Crystal Mays, says striking headgear is set to reach new heights. High collars, lace, ruffles, ribbons, silk flowers and most importantly, large decorated hats and headdresses are the must-have additions for any social occasion. Draw inspiration from the natural world and take advantage of global trade to seek out the rarest colours, patterns and textures you can find – a simple pigeon or pheasant’s plume will hardly do! Try international birds of the muggle variety like egrets, flamingos and New Guinea birds-of-paradise, and foreign magical birds like fwoopers, thunderbirds and phoenixes. A whole stuffed bird atop your head makes a statement like little else.

Shirtwaists: For The Working Woman

We do not forget those young women of a more practical inclination – indeed, some of our poor readers may be sadly neglected from party invitations in the winter months. For those ladies who are required to work for a living, you may sew or purchase tailor-made shirtwaists: often plain white bodices with high collars, to be worn with simple dark skirts and as unfussy as a gentleman’s dress. They keep a feminine figure with a more scholarly or matronly bent for your usual daywear, suitable for secretaries, governesses and other physical pursuits. Be warned, however, that such dress will make a young lady practically invisible, blending into the working masses, so do not make too much a habit of wearing these if you mean to make it on the marriage market.

The Gibson Girl: Sportswear & Chignons

For those young ladies who do mean to marry, be aware that the most attractive of women are now those who are spritely, good-humoured and active – sporty, if you will. Careful embroidery and feminine fragility catches less of a man’s attention now than having a good hand at badminton or croquet and some confidence in flying, horse-riding and cycling. She ought to keep up with her suitors, and be a good sport, win or lose. But how to look? Neat but casual is the answer here: a chignon or bouffant hairstyle, piled prettily atop one’s head while out of the way; a bicycle bloomer suit, shirtwaist or riding habit that allows movement with a shorter hemline but still retains the necessary womanly shape. One will even find tennis jumpers with gigot sleeves... perhaps a handy place to store one’s racket?

Teagowns & Aesthetic Dress

For the ladies more accustomed to leisure, never fear – tea gowns are on the rise as a trend. Worn without corsets for informal day entertaining at home, they are as comfortable as a dressing gown and a happy middle ground, stylistically, between robes and dresses; one does not even require a maid’s help to toss them on. Artistic dress of the aesthetic movement is no longer just the Pre-Raphaelite or Romantic poet’s domain, but perfectly acceptable on any woman who would chooses comfort, freedom and flowing drapery. Consider Japanese design influences and colours from traditional natural dyes. Do note that corsetless tea gowns are meant for entertaining inside the home, for close friends and family – should you venture out by all accounts ‘half-dressed’ you may raise eyebrows. (Unless you are a Dempsey, for some of the Minister’s literary sisters, Miss Porphyria and Miss Shalott, are already rather prone to gallivanting about in such wayward styles.)

Do write in and share your fashion resolutions for 1894!