19th Century Fashion: Part Two Forest Idylls If Clothes Could Talk: The Social History of the Tea Gown Maryland Center for History and Culture 19th Century Empire Dress in Solid Cotton Townsends Votes for Women! A Fashionable Woman Texas State Library Texas State Library The empire waist reshaped fashion in the early 19th century. It borrowed from classical antiquity and rejected the ridgid styles of the 18th century. While the fashion looked more relaxed, the societal