The Greek Key in Victorian Fashion Plates

By Fotis Kalivas

Fashion trends in the Victorian era had a reputation for borrowing foreign, national, and traditional patterns or pieces of clothing and incorporating them into their designs. The way these new items were incorporated into the Victorian wardrobe often commodified their historical meaning. For instance, the styles of the 1860s popularized the Garibaldi Italian shirt and the Swiss waist in women’s fashion, as Lady Rebecca Fashions explains in her survey of fashion during that decade. Another prominent example of the decontextualization and commodification of motifs from other eras and cultures in Western fashion is the Greek key.

The Greek key, or the meander, is a very well-known motif in Ancient Greek, Roman and later Byzantine art and architecture and usually serves as a decoration in pottery or architectural structures. Its origins can be traced back to the myth of Peleus and Thetis, whose wedding set the stage for the apple of discord, ultimately triggering the Trojan War. In most versions of the myth, King Peleus wishes to marry goddess Thetis, but she refuses. Given Prometheus’s prophecy that Thetis’ child would overthrow Zeus, Peleus seeks the aid of Proteus to ensure that Thetis marries a mortal and never gives birth to a child who could threaten Zeus’s power; nevertheless, she gives birth to Achilles. Peleus is instructed to grip Thetis tightly and not release her, even as she transforms into various forms (e.g., snakes, a lion, fire, and water). He succeeds, and they marry. The Greek key symbolizes the shape of his mythical grip.

The repetition of this common Greek pattern in fashion through the Regency and, mainly, the Victorian period suggests a double meaning; the meander may be interpreted as a tool for the Victorian upper-middle class women’s artistic expression–demanding agency and autonomy in the sewing world– and intellectual expression –weaponizing the classical education they coveted– through dress, just as much as it can be perceived as an orientalist gaze on Greece. The meander emerges in four representative illustrations; the two first from English magazines, while the third and the fourth from French and American ones respectively, displaying the foreign influences which also dominated parts of the British market.

 

The first illustration reflects the lingering influence of the Regency Era. It is the image of Anne, Marchioness of Townshend at the time, appearing in La Belle Assemblée or Bell’s Court and Fashionable Magazine in 1806, who is described by the magazine as a “brilliant and perfect example in virtue in high life” (17). Here the Greek key suggests the Marchioness’ high education and her excellence as a lady. The article emphasizes her high virtue and the fact that she brings dignity to her class; she is a role model, and her dress becomes an extension of her soul. She is portrayed with the Greek key covering her plank dress like an ancient frieze. Her appearance resembles that of a Greek deity, as the text compares her and her two sisters to the Three Graces. She exudes a dominant, powerful, and assertive presence; she is idolized and Greece is likewise idealized through its aesthetic association with her.

On the other hand, the illustration from The World of Fashion and Continental Feuilletons, published in February 1836, reflects an orientalist interpretation of Greek aesthetics and the appropriation of Greek decorative motifs. In the bottom right corner, a woman is depicted wearing a Fez or a Fez-like hat along with a gown featuring the Greek key symbol along the hemline, emphasizing Greece’s position as a Balkan country at the crossroads of East and West. Combined with a sense of escapism, this attire exoticizes both Greece’s past and present to the extent that it resembles a costume—likely intended as such. It is not far-fetched to assume that this costume serves as a form of commemoration of Greece’s independence, which occurred six years before the publication of this illustration.

The yellow, rose-adorned gown and the pink, bow-adorned gown representing the West are juxtaposed with the perceived otherness of the East. Through fashion, this contrast evokes an imperialist distinction between the innovative, industrial societies on one side of the illustration and the quaint, underdeveloped nations on the other.

The third image from La Mode Illustrée, published in 1865-1871, establishes the common motif in these three fashion plates: a pattern of performative femininity. As with the previous plate, everything, from the painted idyllic backgrounds – usually an opera, a foyer, a drawing room, a balcony, a beach or a garden – to the specific way the female body is positioned – with dainty fingers, dropped shoulders and submissive heads –, aims to promote the attributes of the Angel in the House. Aside from her purity and submissive nature, one of the key attributes of this notion of ideal womanhood is her little to no academic education, a woman that cannot or should not be able to function beyond domestic life without her husband.

With this interpretation in mind, the Greek key is here transformed from an appropriated symbol to a sign of protest and agency. It serves as a device that allows the wearer to feel elevated and project a sense of knowledge, signalling that she, too, can be regarded as cultivated and sophisticated. These fashion plates aim not only to influence but also to inspire young women –who do not yet have the right to vote– to use fashion as a way of establishing a public position.

The final image is of a bathing suit from The Peterson Magazine, August 1870. The Greek element returns to its appropriated value, an archaic aesthetic tied to nature, particularly to water. The ideal of Poseidon’s sea is advertised to the masses; even the draping of the suit is reminiscent of the Grecian dress. Ancient Greek civilization is seen as a seasonal trend, an aesthetically pleasing pastime now integrated into the global fashion world. Reused every summer as a trimming decoration, the meander brings the feeling of the mystical divine ocean to the modern beach.

 

Bibliography:

“Anne Townshend (née Montgomery), Marchioness Townshend (‘The Marchioness of Townshend in her full Court dress, as worn by her Ladyship, on the Queen’s Birth day, 1806’).” National Portrait Gallery, 1 March 1806, https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw279710/Anne-Townshend-ne-Montgomery-Marchioness-Townshend-The-Marchioness-of-Townshend-in-her-full-Court-dress-as-worn-by-her-Ladyship-on-the-Queens-Birth-day-1806?LinkID=mp160026&role=art&rNo=4, 8 November 2023.

“Bathing-dress; Caps; Shoes, etc.” The New York Public Library Digital Collections, 1870, https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47e0-f1d4-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99, 10 November 2023.

Bell, J. (1806) “Original Communications.” and “Second Division of this Work.”, La Belle Assemblée or Bell’s Court and Fashionable Magazine, Harvard College Library, pp. 1-17 and pp. 61-64.

“The Trojan War.” Penhook, 11 February 2015, http://www.penhook.org/trojanwar.htm.

Lady Rebecca Fashions. “All About 1860’s Fashion // What did Civil War-era fashion look like?” YouTube, 12 November 2022, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PLu18-Y0rM&t=811s.

Lauterbach, Edward S. “Victorian Advertising and Magazine Stripping.” Victorian Studies, vol. 10, no. 4, 1967, pp. 431–34.

“Print.” Victoria and Albert Museum, 1865-1871. https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O700153/print-unknown/, 6 November 2023.

“The World of Fashion and Continental Feuilletons.” Wikimedia Commons, 1 February 1836, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_World_of_fashion_and_continental_feuilletons_(1836)_(14784656092).jpg, 14 November 2023.

Thieme, Otto Charles. “The Art of Dress in the Victorian and Edwardian Eras.” The Journal of Decorative and Propaganda Arts, vol. 10, 1988, pp. 14–27.