The Victorian Fancy Dress Ball, 1870-1900 [Document imprimé] / Rebecca N.Mitchell

While most scholars agree that the Victorian fancy dress ball differs foundamentally form its eighteenth-century predecessor-the masquerade- few studies detail the nature of those differences. This article suggests that central to this shift was the Victorian embrace of self-revelation in fancy dress, as opposed to disguise or antithesis. Late Victorian fancy dress allowed participants to negociate rather than to escape their self-presentation and their milieu : revealing aspects of their character (including, for men, the novelty of sartorial pleasure) by choosing costumes from a prescribed set of identifiable roles and tropes, and by choosing costumes from a prescribed set of identifiable roles and tropes, and by choosing costumes that directly engaged with issues of their day. considering mass-market guidebooks and a range of contemporary popular works, this article explores the representational strategies of late nineteeth-century fancy dress, including abstract and overtly gendered costumes.