Padded rolls at the hips, known as…

Padded rolls at the hips, known as “bum rolls” and “bearers” in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and as “cork rumps” in the eighteenth, are called “dress improvers” in Victorian times.

Not all the women of the 1880s, however, wear these fashionable clothes.

Followers of the Aesthetic movement in England wear looser garments—though the waists are still tight—with enormous sleeves supposed to resemble those worn by women in early Florentine paintings.

The humorous journals of the period make great play with the contrast between fashionable and Aesthetic modes.

Women's hair styles have become more feminine in the 1870s and 80s, dressed high on top and in a chignon or ringlets behind, topped by the dainty hats that have replaced the poke bonnet.