During the 1860s poor people were meant to look poor, and women's dress was more elaborate than men's. During the 1840s, woman's dress was sloping shoulders, childlike ringlets and poke bonnets During the 1860s the dress became bolder. The invention of chemical dyes made women clothing more colourful, and fabrics were dyed garish colours, which would've been seen as unladylike before the Crimean war (1852)
This is the time that Great Expectations was set.
The research i have done so far has helped me gain a wider knowledge of not only what women looked like at the time that the book was written, but also what was expected of women. What was considered a "good" woman and what was considered a "bad" woman, which i think will help a lot in understanding the positions of both Miss Havisham and Estella.
E. Wilson, L.Taylor. 1989.Through the Looking Glass, A History of Dress from 1860 to the Present Day.Woodlands, London. BBC Books
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