History is full of fashion that clashes horrifically with current aesthetics.
I’m fairly certain that one of the reasons for the popularity of Regency-era historical fiction is that the women’s fashions were, for a brief period there, relatively simple. They look a lot better, to our modern eyes, because of it.
My WIP is set in 1832 and by then women’s fashions had swung away from the simplicity of the Empire style to something a little more atrocious. OK, a lot further along the ugly scale than most of us are comfortable with. The ideal female silhouette had wide, wide skirts, a tiny little waist, sloping shoulders, leg of mutton sleeves and hair bunched over the ears so that one looked like a spaniel.
But, as you might imagine given that my working title is “This Unnatural Masquerade”, there is some gender obfuscation going on. And in this respect, the 1830s are the perfect time for a young woman to pass herself off as a man, as you can tell from the fashion plate to the left.
Is he not the last word in manliness?