.. because everyone was trying to look large. The change in fashion matched a change in culture and economics. As the power of women to manage businesses, own property, to have rights over their children, and in many states like Wyoming – to vote! so did fashion ideals change to reflect women’s new status.
The ideal woman of 1883 was literally, as well as figuratively – large.
(Photos: (left) every day woman; (right) Queen Victoria – large women coming out of the Natural Form Era into the late Victorian Era where large women were revered.. and bustled)