Artistic Dress

William Powell Frith's satiric painting of 1883 contrasts women's Aesthetic dress (left and right) with fashionable attire (center) at a private view. Detail of A Private View at the Royal Academy, 1881.

Artistic Dress was a fashion movement in the second half of the nineteenth century that rejected highly structured and heavily trimmed Victorian trends in favour of beautiful materials and simplicity of design. It arguably developed in Britain in the early 1850s, influenced by artistic circles such as the Pre-Raphaelites, and Dress Reform movements. It subsequently developed into more specific categories such as Aesthetic Dress and Künstlerkleid on the continent.