How Would You Describe The Art Style Of The Fashion Design Illustrations? I Love The Antiquarian Looking

How would you describe the art style of the fashion design illustrations? I love the antiquarian looking style

hello my dear! 💖

what an interesting question! 💕💕 either fortunately or unfortunately, you asked either the best or worst person to talk about this lmao 😅😅 as an art history phd student, pretty much all I do is analyze images, so I definitely have some Thoughts™️

first, I'll say that style varies hugely based on time period and publication. even within decades, I've seen a wide variety of styles used, so if you had particular images in mind that you wanted me to talk about, feel free to let me know and I'd be thrilled to discuss those more specifically! ☺️☺️

because there is such a diverse range of stylistic approaches to illustrating fashion plates/images, I'm hesitant to make any sweeping generalizations here, but I will pick out a few themes that I've seen come up a lot:

2d medium vs. 3d object – one of the key features of fashion plates is that, ultimately, they are trying to sell you a garment/style. of course, clothing is three-dimensional, and especially when looking at things like bustled garments, they take up a lot of space in real life that is difficult to represent in a 2d medium. because of this "conflict" between the necessity of depicting the garment and the realities of the medium of drawing/print, we tend to see some odd positioning of the figures. they might be awkwardly bent or twisting in order to show off both a bodice and a bustle at the same time (the figure on the left here is a good example). we also see some "flattening" of the picture plane, wherein the placement of a normally voluminous feature (like a bustle) doesn't really make sense in a naturalistic space, but rather is almost parallel to the chest/bodice of the figure, when in real life it would project backwards rather than weirdly sideways (you can see this in almost any 1880s fashion plate featuring dresses, but this one is a nice example). [also please note that this is not a condemnation of these choices, but rather an analysis of why they're necessary in this medium]

ye olde photoshoppe – connecting to my first point, fashion plates are trying to sell you something, and therefore their artists have incentive to make that product look as attractive/appealing as possible. I do get comments from time to time about how "people don't look like that" or "that's not how bodies work," which, while true, also elide the fact that these artists are not necessarily trying to be naturalistic in their depiction of the human body – they're trying to show you the most marketable version of the human body as determined by the cultural values of their day. just as today we might see impossibly thin models on magazine covers or clearly fake thigh gaps in online retail, so too are the creators of these fashion plates embellishing and exaggerating the human form to make it as appealing as possible to consumers – they're selling a fantasy, not a reality

non-specificity – another thing that is fairly common across historical fashion plates is the non-specificity of facial features on the figures portrayed. if you feel so inclined, take a scroll through the blog and compare the faces of the figures in the illustrations (obviously this does not work in the same way for photographs). you'll likely find that you keep seeing the same face over and over again. what's more, that face has almost no distinctive features, and is almost doll-like in its perfection. given what we've already discussed, this isn't a surprise, since fashion plates are meant to sell garments, and therefore a portrait-like rendering of a specific model isn't really the goal. the figures in fashion plates essentially are dolls – they are meant to be "dressed" in whichever style is being sold, and visually appealing yet non-specific enough to potentially interest a large population of possible consumers

whew! okay I will wrap up my ramblings now, but I hope this was at least a little bit helpful or perhaps mildly interesting! ☺️☺️ as you can see, I love doing this kind of visual analysis, so (as I mentioned above) if you have specific images you wanted me to talk about stylistically, feel free to let me know!! ☺️💕 and thank you again for this great question! 💖💖

if you've made it to the end, thanks for reading my ramblings, and let me know what y'all think about the stylistic features of fashion plates if you have thoughts! 🥰🥰

More Posts from Roebert and Others

3 months ago

Tags
1 week ago
Pillings Fall 2025 Ready-To-Wear

Pillings Fall 2025 Ready-To-Wear

3 weeks ago

The thing about parrots is that they will fuck with you for fun. On the outside a parrot is a small flying dinosaur with bolt cutters on its face. On the inside a parrot is a toddler with a GED who you might have unwisely trapped in your house. Humans are usually the most entertaining thing in a parrot's environment (aside from other parrots).

My parrot knows all the words for his favorite foods: peanut, berry, carrot, and noodle are the most frequently requested. I often demonstrate how good he is at naming foods when I have guests over by saying, "Ripley, what is this?" And Ripley, seeing a roasted, unsalted peanut in my hand, will answer, "a peanut." He does this for many foods, multiple times a day, knowing that if he answers correctly I'll give him several of whatever he can name.

I also offer my houseguests a chance to participate, holding a treat about a foot away from Ripley and asking him what it is. Ripley is always very gentle when treats are involved. But for the past few months, when someone he doesn't know attempts this trick with him, he deliberately gets the answer wrong.

"What is this?" my friend asks Ripley as she holds out a peanut. He confidently answers, "a berry." We laugh. "No, what is it!" she tries again. "A berry." She laughs.

I hand her dried cranberry. "What's this?" she asks, holding it up. Without hesitation Ripley answers "a peanut." She holds up the peanut again. "What is it!!" "A berry," he answers. Both my friend and my parrot laugh. Apparently this joke is worth more to my bird than getting the treat.

8 months ago

I got the Top 4.47% on this English Vocabulary test

1 month ago

Part 3: Combining shapes, braids, and textures! And utilizing parts and fros!

Part 3: Combining Shapes, Braids, And Textures! And Utilizing Parts And Fros!
Part 3: Combining Shapes, Braids, And Textures! And Utilizing Parts And Fros!
Part 3: Combining Shapes, Braids, And Textures! And Utilizing Parts And Fros!
Part 3: Combining Shapes, Braids, And Textures! And Utilizing Parts And Fros!
Part 3: Combining Shapes, Braids, And Textures! And Utilizing Parts And Fros!
Part 3: Combining Shapes, Braids, And Textures! And Utilizing Parts And Fros!
Part 3: Combining Shapes, Braids, And Textures! And Utilizing Parts And Fros!
Part 3: Combining Shapes, Braids, And Textures! And Utilizing Parts And Fros!
Part 3: Combining Shapes, Braids, And Textures! And Utilizing Parts And Fros!
Part 3: Combining Shapes, Braids, And Textures! And Utilizing Parts And Fros!
Post by @donutsbagels · 7 images
Tumblr
💬 0  🔁 290  ❤️ 409 · Final/Part 4: Messing with straight hair!
1 month ago
IT IS [WEELVIL] WEDNESDAY MY DUDES
IT IS [WEELVIL] WEDNESDAY MY DUDES
IT IS [WEELVIL] WEDNESDAY MY DUDES
IT IS [WEELVIL] WEDNESDAY MY DUDES

IT IS [WEELVIL] WEDNESDAY MY DUDES

1 week ago
GrizzlyBryce

GrizzlyBryce


Tags
1 week ago
Dress

Dress

c. 1807-1810

DAR Museum

1 week ago

The post on that reading comprehension study is good (and reminded me of some of my complaints about GPT a couple years ago, although the LLMs have gotten much better since then).

But the thing that really stood out to me is that I feel much this same way about math instruction:

i have seen this repeatedly, too - actually i was particularly taken with how similar this is to the behavior of struggling readers at much younger ages - and would summarize the hypothesis i have forged over time as: struggling readers do not expect what they read to make sense. my hypothesis for why this is the case is that their reading deficits were not attended to or remediated adequately early enough, and so, in their formative years - the early to mid elementary grades - they spent a lot of time "reading" things that did not make sense to them - in fact they spent much more time doing this than they ever did reading things that did make sense to them - and so they did not internalize a meaningful subjective sense of what it feels like to actually read things.

One of the big problems I have primarily in Calculus 1 (which is the lowest-level course I've taught) is that students just don't expect math to make sense. There's a bunch of rules to follow, which you have to memorize, and then you look at an expression and use some rule that seems like you could use it.

But that's not how competent mathematicians (and I use that word in the broadest possible sense) interact with mathematics. Mathematical formulas mean things. They have syntax, and semantics, and you can break apart a computation and talk about what individual terms mean and are doing, and what manipulation you're doing and what that corresponds to.

(Sometimes, of course, that's easier than others. Calc 2, in particular, involves a lot of "tricks" where it's hard to explain the logic in the middle of using them. But that's why I'm focusing on Calc 1 here, which is mostly not like that but does have a lot of application-y problems where this semantic understanding is important.)

But if you've never worked through a math problem and felt like everything was meaningful, you don't expect meaning in what you're doing, and you don't expect your own work to make sense. And then, well, it won't, and you'll struggle and get lost in the middle of every problem.

1 week ago
Pillings Fall 2025 Ready-To-Wear

Pillings Fall 2025 Ready-To-Wear

Loading...
End of content
No more pages to load
  • eraserbitz
    eraserbitz liked this · 5 months ago
  • mightyoctopus
    mightyoctopus reblogged this · 8 months ago
  • ocularskewer
    ocularskewer liked this · 9 months ago
  • fabioafterdark
    fabioafterdark liked this · 9 months ago
  • meshimellow
    meshimellow liked this · 9 months ago
  • asterroth
    asterroth reblogged this · 9 months ago
  • alexaviolet2
    alexaviolet2 liked this · 9 months ago
  • likecastle
    likecastle liked this · 9 months ago
  • ub-sessed
    ub-sessed reblogged this · 9 months ago
  • ub-sessed
    ub-sessed liked this · 9 months ago
  • spiderfluids
    spiderfluids reblogged this · 9 months ago
  • carla-andtheartofbeing
    carla-andtheartofbeing liked this · 9 months ago
  • corduroy-leggings
    corduroy-leggings liked this · 9 months ago
  • myrtaceaae
    myrtaceaae liked this · 9 months ago
  • honeybeeshepherd
    honeybeeshepherd liked this · 9 months ago
  • edwardian-girl-next-door
    edwardian-girl-next-door liked this · 9 months ago
  • cockadoodlebumtits
    cockadoodlebumtits liked this · 9 months ago
  • cyanbugremix
    cyanbugremix liked this · 9 months ago
  • grandbuste
    grandbuste liked this · 9 months ago
  • trompettenarrative
    trompettenarrative reblogged this · 9 months ago
  • trickstercheshi
    trickstercheshi reblogged this · 9 months ago
  • gasmaskmaiden
    gasmaskmaiden liked this · 9 months ago
  • vvitch--please
    vvitch--please liked this · 9 months ago
  • lyndentree63
    lyndentree63 reblogged this · 9 months ago
  • thedapinna
    thedapinna liked this · 9 months ago
  • taleweaver-ramblings
    taleweaver-ramblings liked this · 9 months ago
  • telesilla
    telesilla liked this · 9 months ago
  • what-the-flowers
    what-the-flowers liked this · 9 months ago
  • le-catman
    le-catman liked this · 9 months ago
  • bisexualshakespeare
    bisexualshakespeare liked this · 9 months ago
  • nevermoralenora
    nevermoralenora liked this · 9 months ago
  • nekomacbeth
    nekomacbeth liked this · 9 months ago
  • ahappychinchilla
    ahappychinchilla liked this · 9 months ago
  • goopi-e
    goopi-e liked this · 9 months ago
  • my-deer-friend
    my-deer-friend liked this · 9 months ago
  • supjello
    supjello liked this · 9 months ago
  • historical-fashion-polls
    historical-fashion-polls reblogged this · 9 months ago
roebert - Untitled
Untitled

83 posts

Explore Tumblr Blog
Search Through Tumblr Tags