Which eases us without fuss into the next…

… Mid-Victorian era.  It is difficult to establish where one starts and one stops – an actual dilemma with fashion history as a whole.  Just like us today, women wore their favorite out-dated fashions long after new ones were introduced.  It might take a long time for women to learn or be able to obtain a new style.

There were not distinct lines saying “this is fashionable now”.

What women wore depended on what was available, affordable, and possible given the information at hand.