worn with a white shirt and a dark tie. Knee-length topcoats, often with contrasting velvet or fur collars, and calf-length overcoats were worn in winter. Shirts and neckties Shirt collars were turned over or pressed into "wings", and became taller through the decade. Dress shirts had stiff fronts, sometimes decorated with shirt studs and buttoned up the back. Striped shirts were popular for informal occasions. The usual necktie was a four-in-hand or an Ascot tie, made up as a neckband with wide wings attached and worn with a stickpin, but the 1890s also saw the return of the bow tie (in various proportions) for day dress. Accessories As earlier in the century, top hats remained a requirement for upper class formal wear; bowlers and soft felt hats in a variety of shapes were worn for more casual occasions, and flat straw boaters were worn for yachting and at the seashore. Style gallery Painter John Singer Sargent in formal evening clothes, c. 1890. Another portrait of Sargent, in day dress: dark coat and waistcoat, dark red ascot, and tall collar, c. 1890. This picture shows the long, lean silhouette in fashion at this time. Oscar Wilde wears a frock coat with a pocket square, 1890s. Frederick Law Olmsted wears a tan topcoat over a gray suit, 1895. George du Maurier wears a double-breasted waistcoat with a shawl collar under his sack coat, with grey trousers. He wears square-toed shoes with spats, 1896. Country clothes: James Tissot wears breeches and high boots with a reddish collared waistcoat and a brown coat. Even with this casual outdoor costume, he wears a tie, 1898. College fashion includes a straw boater. William Beveridge at Balliol, 1898. Children's fashion Working clothes Notes Reforming Fashion 1850-1914 See also Corset controversy References Arnold, Janet: Patterns of Fashion 2: Englishwomen's Dresses and Their Construction C.1860–1940, Wace 1966, Macmillan 1972. Revised metric edition, Drama Books 1977. Ashelford, Jane: The Art of Dress: Clothing and Society 1500–1914, Abrams, 1996. Blanchard, Mary. "The American History Review: Boundaries and the Victorian Body: Aesthetic Fashion in Gilded Age America," Oxford University Press, 1995. Vol. 100, No. 1, pp. 21-50 Nunn, Joan: Fashion in Costume, 1200–2000, 2nd edition, A & C Black (Publishers) Ltd; Chicago: New Amsterdam Books, 2000. (Excerpts online at The Victorian Web) Payne, Blanche: History of Costume from the Ancient Egyptians to the 20th century, Harper & Row, 1965. No ISBN for