Gibson Girls | Vintage Sex Goddesses 1891 -1910
By Hillary
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Gibson girls
Gibson Girls by Charles Dana Gibson
The Gibson Girls of America’s Victorian Age – the late 19th and early 20th century, had a style and sophistication that paved the way to today’s popular Vintage Revival. Long tresses piled high on their heads with sexy tendrils innocently escaping those seemingly impossible coifs, the women of the era possessed an alluring mystique.
With decorated necklines and tiny corseted waists, Gibson Girls were quite the rage in their day; incredibly sexy, despite their turn of the century moral standards.
charles_dana_gibson
Charles Dana Gibson
When I say, “Gibson Girls” I refer to the fair creations depicted in the wildly popular drawings of American artist Charles Dana Gibson. These clever young women were considered “hot” when the word “hot” still referred to the state of your porridge.
Before I get down to the suggestions on how you too can become a modern-day Gibson Girl goddess, I feel compelled to offer a brief glimpse into the era in which Charles Dana Gibson became so popular.
Victorianism in America
American Victorianism was trendy chiefly in the New England states from roughly 1875 to 1910. During these puritanical times, sex was never discussed in polite company. Even the word “leg” dare not be mentioned for fear that gentlemen overhearing such conversation might lose control of their bodily functions.
Sexual feelings and non-marital “relations” were barely acknowledged by people of good breeding, save for one or two goateed Viennese psychoanalysts. That’s not to say people of the day were asexual; quite the opposite. Brothels flourished and were widely frequented by gentlemen (mostly) from all walks of society both in Europe and the U.S., while thousands of pornographic pamphlets, photos and novels were fervently snatched up by a sexually repressed populace.
The talented New York art student, Charles Dana Gibson got a career break in the fall of 1886 when he managed to sell a drawing of a dog chained to his doghouse to a little publication called Life Magazine. He continued to produce drawings for Life for the next 30 years and became a veritable media superstar of his day. The dog had nothing to do with it.
Gibson's illustration "The Weaker Sex"
Gibson's illustration “The Weaker Sex”
It was Gibson’s representation of the ideal woman that made him famous. Soon labeled “The Gibson Girl”, this innocent sex goddess was to the printed page, what Betty Grable, Marilyn Monroe and Brigitte Bardot would later be to the silver screen.
In Victorian times, it was the illustrators of popular magazines that influenced people’s esthetic values.
Life magazine’s Gibson Girls were spirited, well bred, independent and utterly feminine, yet underneath it all, there was that Scarlet O’Hara flash of mischief in their eyes.
That naughty characteristic was what made the Gibson Girl so alluring. Coy, mischievous, intelligent; those sexy attributes of the Victorian era are still sexy today.
Gibson Girls on TV
If you’ve been enjoying some of the popular turn-of-the-century genre programs on television, such as Public Broadcasting’s “Downton Abbey”, and “Mr. Selfridge”, you may also have been lusting after the vintage fashions featured within those series such as the decorative mesh handbags, the alluring lingerie and the choker necklaces.
How to Become a Modern Day Gibson Girl – Here Are My Savvy Suggestions:
Hillary Miles as a Gibson Girl
Here I am with a Gibson Girl hairdo I created using the stuffed pantyhose method. I was a professional actor at the time.
We need to sport more Gibson Girl hairstyles. Curling irons, flat irons, hair rollers and the like are as cumbersome as corsets. Just let your hair do its thing and pile it on top of your head. If a few tendrils escape, all the better.
If your hair lacks volume, there are two ways to create the Gibson Girl look.
1- Buy a handful of synthetic hair from a beauty supply store and pin it behind your front hairline.
2- Lift all your hair, (natural and synthetic) loosely on top of your head. Swirl the ends into a bun and secure it with bobby pins.
For a Fuller, More Constructed Gibson Hairdo Effect….
1- Cut off the leg of an old panty hose.
2- Fill it with cotton or any soft material. Make it the same length as the circumference of your head and sew the ends together to form a big, soft donut.
3- Now comb the front of your hair down from the top of your head, with bangs or long front hair hanging over your eyes. The rest of your hair hangs down over your ears and neck.
4- Slide the donut over your head but don’t go past your ears or forehead.
5- Lift all your hanging hair over the donut and tie it into a pony tail on the top of your head.
6- Wrap the tail into a bun. If your hair isn't long enough to tie, just pin it and secure a fake bun on the top of your head.
7- Pull out some hair tendrils from the roll, in front of your ears and down your neck. That’s it!
More suggestions for a Gibson Girl Revival:
Gibson Girls at the beach
Gibson Girls at the beach
1- Design and market a Gibson Girl swim suit complete with black stockings. I’m sure Gortex has some newfangled material that keeps you cool in 90 degree temperatures. When you’ve developed it, let me know and I’ll advertise it on this page.
gibson girl plays golf2- Wear a shirtwaist blouse with a sexy bustier, or camisole. Sport a flowing skirt with just a hint of a bustle. If you’re natural bustle is already built in, more power to you.
3- Buy some vintage silk lingerie. There is nothing sexier.
4- Carry a vintage handbag. It's all the rage right now, and the mesh, beaded and tapestry bags are becoming great collectible items.
5- Continue to trust your feminine intuition. It will help you screen out deadbeat suitors.
6- Don’t be afraid to be “mischievous”. It worked for the Gibson Girl and it will work for you. Just don’t get arrested.
6- Read Victorian sex novels. They're the real thing and your partner will thank you for it.
If you’re interested in a steamy, sophisticated Victorian book by a modern day author, check out “The Crimson Petal and the White” (offered below). It's a brilliantly conceived, funny, erotic and satisfying novel by Michael Faber. The book explores England’s Victorian society including “preening socialites, drunken journalists,.. and whores of all types and persuasions”. His brilliant heroine is in many ways, the Gib
Forget about Kim, Khloe, and Kourtney. At the turn of the twentieth century, it was all about Evelyn, Camille, and Irene, the original "Gibson Girls" and the models for the drawings that changed the way America thought about women.
Though the 1890s may seem buttoned up by modern standards, they were anything but. Independent, well-read, and urbane, a new class of woman was emerging in America's cities. This "New Woman" did not care to be chaperoned in public. She was athletic and free-spirited. Above all, she was educated, taking advantage of new access to secondary school and college.
She was also scary. By the 1890s, the reform fervor of suffragists and their sisters had ceased to be cute and started to be all too real. The status quo was being challenged by Progressive politics, new divorce laws, and women who chose to work outside the home. Charles Dana Gibson, a popular illustrator, looked down on reform zeal in women. And so he created "the Gibson girl," a catch-all representation of a kinder, gentler New Woman—one who rode bikes, wore casual clothing, and flaunted her attitude, but was above all beautiful and anonymous. By the 1910s, to visit Gibson's office was to push your way through hundreds of gorgeous models with big hair and small waists, each vying for a go as one of Gibson's girls.
Wikimedia Commons
If ever there was a figure that expressed ambiguity about its subject, it was the Gibson Girl. Gibson's creations poked men with pins and looked at them under magnifying glasses, towered over infatuated suitors, and even played golf—all while rocking gigantic pompadours and chignons, crisp shirtwaists and impeccably corseted hips. You wouldn't see her at a settlement house or a suffrage rally, but you might spot her by the Ouija board or by the sea, working her hose and bathing costume with all of the self-conscious hauteur of a Kim K. selfie.
"Wear a blank expression/and a monumental curl/And walk with a bend in your back/Then they will call you a Gibson Girl." Camille Clifford, a Belgian songbird, sang this tune with great irony in 1907, long after she won an international magazine contest in search of the woman who best embodied Gibson's girl. Known for her 18-inch waist and her signature walk, she took the theatrical world by storm without benefit of acting skills or much more than the rumor that she had eloped with a British lord. She can also be blamed for the high-maintenance fashion craze that was the S-curve, an overtly sensuous look achieved by a corset laced nearly to the knees.
Wikimedia Commons
Evelyn Nesbit, another one of Gibson's models, boasted of a career that started as the first supermodel and ended with the first "trial of the century" of the 1900s. Like many others, Gibson was entranced by her luxurious, over-the-top hair, which he molded into a question mark for one of the most famous Gibson Girl drawings, entitled "Woman: The Eternal Question." A recent book claims that a photograph of Evelyn even inspired Lucy Maud Montgomery to write Anne of Green Gables.
Getty Images
Evelyn appeared on magazine covers, pouted as a "Florodora girl," and was eventually seduced by notorious womanizer Stanford White, who infamously placed her on a red velvet swing in his apartment so he could admire her before deflowering her. Eventually, she married millionaire Harry Kendall Thaw, who shot White to death after spotting him at Madison Square Garden. The trial that ensued put O.J. Simpson's to shame, with wall-to-wall tabloid coverage and a deadlocked jury. After her husband was convicted, Evelyn went on to work in silent films, burlesque, and even operated her own Prohibition-era speakeasy.
Ironically, the least famous of the Gibson Girls was probably the original, and Irene Langhorne Gibson was far closer to the independent New Woman than her husband liked to admit. Known for her supermodel looks and her Virginia fortune, Irene fended off plenty of proposals before falling in love with Gibson. But though her tall stature and haughty, almost arrogant looks inspired her husband, Irene was far more noteworthy for her passion for Progressive politics. Her philanthropic efforts helped troubled women and children, and her ability to use her society connections effected real change. While Gibson turned women back into Girls, Irene quietly and tirelessly showed just what a woman could achieve.
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