TikTok creators wearing Victorian-era fashion

​WUDPAC Class of 2023 textile conservation major Margaret O’Neil is part of an online historical costuming community, featured in a recent article on the Refinery 29 website.​​ From the ​​March 4, 2022 article by Francis Solá-Santiago​​​:

Some Victorian fashion creators on TikTok are not interested in making the era’s style modern though. Margaret O'Neil, who goes by @costumeandconservation on TikTok, is a textile conservation student with a focus on historical costumes. In her videos, she puts on layers of crinolines, corsets, and skirts for her 32,000 followers. Since she first started collecting Victorian costumes, O’Neil has amassed an impressive selection of pieces, including a garment from 1800, her oldest to date. “I always joke that my wardrobe goes from 1820 to 2020,” she says, referring to how she uses vintage pieces as her everyday clothing. ​

​While she’s genuinely interested in the fashion of the time, O’Neil says that, for conservators, it’s also just one of the easiest periods in history to work with because there’s a lot of material available. That provides an opportunity for conservators to explore old sewing and material techniques. Take a gown from the 1860s, for which O’Neil had to sew an elliptical cage crinoline, a mid-19th century undergarment used to give volume to skirts, that requires hours of hand sewing. ​

“It's a super weird piece of clothing,” she says. “Even looking at the satirical prints of the time, they made fun of it.” When she donned the garment, O’Neil found herself unable to move around her Wilmington, Delaware apartment. “There’s a reason we abandoned this style,” she jokes.​