From Crowns To Corsets, Here Are 103 Iconic Pieces That Carried History On Their Shoulders (New Pics)

The last two hundred years of fashion have been a wild ride through social upheavals and technological breakthroughs and artistic rebellions. If you could hop into a time machine and land in the eighteen twenties you would see a world moving away from the simple white columns of the Regency era where high waists and thin muslin were the gold standard.

This shift happened because the Romantic movement began to take hold and people craved more drama and imagination in their lives which resulted in sleeves puffing up to massive proportions and waistlines dropping back to their natural place. By the mid nineteenth century the world changed forever thanks to the Industrial Revolution which introduced the sewing machine and synthetic dyes.

Suddenly fabrics became cheaper and colors like the first synthetic purple called mauveine became all the rage for everyone, not just the super wealthy. This era gave us the massive cage crinolines that turned women into walking bells because nothing screamed status quite like using thirty yards of fabric for a single dress. During this same time a man named Charles Frederick Worth became the father of haute couture by being the first to sign his creations like a true artist and creating the concept of seasonal fashion shows.

As the nineteenth century drew to a close the silhouettes shifted from the round hoop to the bustle which focused all the volume at the back of the skirt often supported by heavy frames made of wire or horsehair. This led into the Edwardian era where the S-bend corset pushed the chest forward and the hips back to create a very specific and somewhat painful curve known as the pigeon breast. However things were about to get a lot more comfortable as the world modernized and women began to play sports like tennis and ride bicycles.

The arrival of the nineteen twenties brought the iconic flapper look which was a direct result of women gaining the right to vote and entering the workforce after the first world war. Gone were the restrictive corsets and long trains and in their place were short bobs and loose knee length dresses that allowed women to dance the Charleston and breathe freely. This was the first time in history that youth culture really started to drive the trends instead of just following the traditions of the older generation and it signaled a permanent shift toward a more relaxed and athletic lifestyle for everyone.

The party of the roaring twenties ended abruptly with the Great Depression and the following decade saw a return to more modest and feminine lines as people looked for comfort and stability. Hemlines dropped again and designers like Madeleine Vionnet popularized the bias cut which allowed fabric to drape beautifully over the natural curves of the body and was heavily influenced by the glamour of Hollywood film stars. When the second world war broke out fashion became a matter of national duty through utility clothing and rationing because materials like silk and nylon were needed for parachutes.

Fabric was scarce so skirts became shorter and slimmer and shoulder pads became popular because they gave women a strong and capable look as they took over jobs in factories. Once the war ended everyone was hungry for luxury again and Christian Dior delivered exactly that with his New Look in nineteen forty seven. It featured tiny waists and enormous skirts that used incredible amounts of fabric which was a joyful protest against the years of deprivation and a return to traditional ideas of beauty.

The nineteen sixties and seventies were a time of pure rebellion and the mini skirt became the ultimate symbol of liberation as it climbed higher and higher up the thigh. Young people in London led the way with bold colors and geometric prints while the hippie movement later embraced natural fabrics and bell bottoms as a way to reject consumerism and celebrate individuality.

This spirit of excess continued into the nineteen eighties which was the era of power dressing where giant shoulder pads and neon colors signaled corporate ambition and the booming wealth of the decade. By the time the nineteen nineties arrived the world was tired of the glitter and turned toward the raw aesthetic of grunge and the clean lines of minimalism which paved the way for the casual styles we see today.

Now that we have reached the middle of the twenty twenties we find ourselves in a digital age where fast fashion and social media have sped up the trend cycle to an almost dizzying pace. We see a mix of everything from Y2K nostalgia to the rise of quiet luxury where the focus is on high quality and understated elegance rather than loud logos.

Fashion remains the most visible way we tell the story of who we are and what we value in a changing world because it is a mirror of our history and our hopes for the future. It continues to evolve every single day as we find new ways to balance our desire for self expression with a growing need for sustainability and ethical production.