Dashers and dandies: elegance or vanity. Victorian valentines and the the artifice of dress

John Johnson Collection: Valentines 7 (16)
John Johnson Collection: Valentines 7 (16)

Elegant women in elegant gowns, their images set off by delicate lace paper by Mansell or Dobbs: typical valentine cards – or were they?  After looking at thousands of British valentines in the John Johnson Collection and the online collections of the Museum of London, it would seem that the answer is ‘not really.’  Certainly there are some, but there are far more examples of flowers and birds, cupids and temples than realistic damsels.  Perhaps purchasers fought shy of representing their loved one with a woman with different colour eyes or hair, or surpassing her in beauty.  Perhaps the Victorians preferred the symbolism of flowers or  the intricate concoctions of lacy elaborate valentines.

John Johnson Collection: Valentines 7 (17)

 

John Johnson Collection: Valentines 7 (19)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The heyday of the Victorian valentine in the 1850s and 1860s coincided with the emergence of the crinoline.  Even with ladies of high class, the hooped petticoats were frequently the butt of humour.

Dressing for the ball. Satirical print: John Johnson Collection: Valentines 7 (19)
John Johnson Collection: Fashion 19 (24)
John Johnson Collection: Valentines 3 (86)
John Johnson Collection: Valentines 3 (86)
John Johnson Collection: Valentines 1 (71)
John Johnson Collection: Valentines 1 (71) The ‘pork pie hat’ becomes you well / For seldom now we see a belle / Of such extensive girth, / You may account yourself a prize. / For all must class you from your size / With fat things of the earth.

Somewhat surprisingly, crinolines were worn by all strata of society – an irresistible temptation to the publishers of ‘comic’ or ‘vinegar valentines. By far the greater number of ‘fashion’ related valentines in the John Johnson Collection are of this type.

John Johnson Collection: Valentines 3 (70)
John Johnson Collection: Valentines 3 (70) To balls and parties thus you go / With crinoline to catch a beau, / I’m not caught in such a trap / Not wishing to become a flat

 

 

John Johnson Collection: Valentines 2 (6)
John Johnson Collection: Valentines 2 (6) So absurdly do you dress, / No words can my disgust express, / As wife I would never call mine / A thing made up of Crinoline, / With hoops & pads why you appear / Six times the size you really are,/ Were your crinoline transparent / Then the deceit would be apparent

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hats and bonnets, parasols, breeches, & rouge all were fair game for the engravers and versifiers of these cruel valentines.  Aimed at the lower classes, men reproached women for trying to appear too fine, for falsifying their appearance. The ‘dasher’ of the title is portrayed below, with the lines I’d sooner drown and end my life / Than have a dasher for a wife.’

 

John Johnson Collection: Valentines 5 (11b)
John Johnson Collection: Valentines 5 (11b)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But men did not escape. The most obvious targets were dandies, fops and swells, or lady-killers!

 

John Johnson Collection: Valentines 2 (27)
John Johnson Collection: Valentines 2 (27)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

John Johnson Collection: Valentines 1 (60a)
John Johnson Collection: Valentines 1 (60a)

However caricaturised, however cruel, these vinegar valentines give us as much (or more) insight into the fashion (and language) of the time than the beautiful idealised and idolised elegant maidens of high society.

Both form the subject of our new Pinterest page, in association with the National Valentine Collectors Association (USA) and their wonderful and indefatigable President, Nancy Rosin.