抄録
It is generally believed that fashion had been dominated by aristocracies and the upper classes in the modern period in England. However, during the Victorian period, this norm was severely eroded by the increasing numbers of the middle classes. They began to re-interpret the fashions of their social superiors on the basis of middle-class sense of values and morality. With the help of middle-class oriented fashion magazines, new ideas about fashions became widely distributed.
To trace this process, the author uses a variety of sources: etiquette books which were predominately read by socially ambitious middle-class people, popular fashion magazines such as the Englishwoman's Domestic Magazine, and essays on extreme fashions such as tight-lacing. The author argues that the strong sense of morality of the middle class caused people to exercise self-restraint when choosing their clothes, and strictly dictated what was appropriate to wear. These ideas were gradually integrated in forming the sense of Englishness of English dress.
