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Frizzy hair and hats... a Victorian fashion guide

The dresses might have been longer and the relationship advice more conservative, but 144 years ago, the Englishwoman's Domestic Magazine was studied no less keenly than the pages of Cosmopolitan.

Published by Isabella Beeton - better known as Mrs Beeton, the celebrated Victorian cook - it was an indispensable guide for those ladies of high society who were terrified of committing a fashion faux pas.

Now that 19th-century style advice will be available to modern women when a rare 1863 copy of the monthly magazine is auctioned at the end of the month.

In it, readers were advised what was - and was not - appropriate to wear in the autumn and winter seasons. The bound album, complete with vibrant colour plates, focused on hats, headwear and all the associated accoutrements because "bonnets are in great variety and in great favour just now".
Read entire article at Telegraph (UK)