Hey Everyone,
I know hair styles and skirt lengths were indicators of modesty and maturity for VE girls and women and the transition between certain inches, and from out to plaits and braids, to the updo and bun were part of the whole girlhood to womanhood and between transitions and I was wondering if anybody was aware of the sort of official ages that these events happened for children and teens and if attendance at Hogwarts affects this for us as some of the standards may relate more to being Out in Society as opposed to I am Sixteen going on Seventeen.

Anybody keen to weigh in, cause my usual benchmark says by now Greta is to conform to womanly victorian dress with full length skirts suitable for a middle class woman and her hair is to be tied up in a respectable bun...

Sincerely,
A concerned RPer of an almost sixteen year old.

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   Millie Potts

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Thanks go to the marvelous MJ for her sensational set.

I think the cut off for down vs. braided was around 15/16, but was subjective. My understanding was that marriage/spinsterhood was an automatic "your hair is up" time. I will look into sources, but that's roughly where I am now?

  

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MJ about made me cry with this one!
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Re: Dress length
This is from 1868 -so a bit earlier than us - but from what I can see the requirements hadn't changed much


Its from Harpers Bazar in 1868

It goes up to 16 presumable because girls were coming out at 17+. I would have guessed our PSYR girls would wear debutante length dresses even though they are not technically had their coming outs -unless we count the Hogwarts one as the official dress length drop moment.

I was a boarding school girl and they would measure our skirt lengths with rulers to make sure we were keeping to correct lengths - because different years were allowed different lengths - I'd always sort of thought that uniform letter would indicate dress length and matrons would check - strictness of matron determining if she just sort of eyeballs it or goes as far as measuring.
Or uniforms could be charmed to drop the hem automatically when a girl reaches a certain age.

I sort of thought that the basic dress part of the uniform would be written generically like 'plain black dress (X) hem' - that way poor girls would have a basic black cotton dress, while richer girls might be in better tailored or better quality fabrics - with then the official robe bit over the top. I admit this is based almost entirely on A little Princess! lol

Edit: posting a discussion of girls dress lengths felt weird from murocks account....so i changed it

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   Aldous Crouch, Philomena Sprout

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I am especially interested about the hair aspect of this as well.

  

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My understanding is that a young lady's hems were let down all the way (that is to say down to the ground) when they became a lady and debuted in society. I took that to mean here on Charming as age 17 or when they debut whichever comes first. My understanding of Victorian hair is that once a girl becomes a lady she must then start wearing it up and is no longer allowed to keep it down in polite society.

Again, this is just my understanding based on what I've read and research I did for Sisse over the years. I can go hunting for sources as I don't recall where the knowledge came from. From my childhood I do know that in the 1860s showing an ankle under a skirt was scandalous and I've considered that the situation at Charming until the shorter skirts start showing up. I believe skirt length begins to shorten in the late Edwardian period.

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   Aldous Crouch, Philomena Sprout

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Thank you Bee <3 Your magic has made Sisse bloom

On the uniform aspect, full honestly ever since starting Hogwarts Legacy [thanks 80% off key code from 3rd party site] Ive filled in the gaps of uniforms from the outfits that they have on there. If anyone wants me to compile links just lmk.

Victorian children in general, from what I've researched, really were just dressed like adults but with simpler and less complicated themes to their outfits.

From this link:

In Victorian times, children’s hairstyles were a miniature reflection of adult fashion, albeit simpler. Girls typically had long hair, styled in soft, gentle curls or simple braids. They might often have ribbons or small flowers in their hair. The flowers would often be real but sometimes made of silk, particularly in the cold months when flowers were out of season.

Young boys, usually had their hair kept long and in curls until they reached a certain age, known as the ‘breeching age,’. At this stage of childhood they would start to wear trousers and their hair would be cut shorter. This grooming marked their passage towards a more ‘masculine’ appearance.

Like others have said, I think we can also safely say that the Wizarding World tradition of a wix child coming of age at 17 would make sense to start with more adult styles.

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   Aldous Crouch, Millie Potts, Themis Lyra

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❧ Welcome to Evergardens ❧

So, would a female Hogwarts student generally be encouraged or judged for different hairstyles by 5th or 6th years, whether she wears her hair up or down?

  

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By "up" is that braided up against the head or up as in plaits that can descend down below the shoulders? And I always imagine calf length day dresses underneath their robes.

Dress style is probably also very much dictated by their class as well rich girls dresses get longer as they grow and replace them, poor girls dresses get shorter as they grow but make do and mend.

  

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So, would a female Hogwarts student generally be encouraged or judged for different hairstyles by 5th or 6th years, whether she wears her hair up or down?

As with many things, this depends on the characters! However, wearing hair fully down is associated with prostitutes in the Victorian era.

By "up" is that braided up against the head or up as in plaits that can descend down below the shoulders? And I always imagine calf length day dresses underneath their robes.

Dress style is probably also very much dictated by their class as well rich girls dresses get longer as they grow and replace them, poor girls dresses get shorter as they grow but make do and mend.

Robes are their own dress style - it would be weird for someone to wear a dress under their robe.

  

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MJ made this!

Cassius Lestrange i thought the robes were relatively lightweight, in the films they are all fully dressed under their robes in whatever clothes they want to. A bit like a woman might wear a dress under graduation robes.

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   Basil Foxwood

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Cassius Lestrange i thought the robes were relatively lightweight, in the films they are all fully dressed under their robes in whatever clothes they want to. A bit like a woman might wear a dress under graduation robes.

Nope, my previous post is the book canon here!

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   Daffodil Grimstone

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MJ made this!