mid 19th-century french fashion goes for the bell shape. yet late 19th-century trend favors the slimmer silhouette:
women were not alone in consuming fashion (circa the mid-nineteenth century).
(above) a difference in male tastes from 18th to 19th century.
below, the consummate English dandy, Oscar Wilde,
this is from his diary of an exquisite, London, 1819:
Took four hours to dress; and then it rained; ordered the tilbury and my umbrella, and drove to the fives' court; next to my tailors; put him off after two years tick; no bad fellow that Weston...broke three stay-laces and a buckle, tore the quarter of a pair of shoes, made so thin by O'Shaughnessy, in St. James's Street, that they were light as brown paper; what a pity they were lined with pink satin, and were quite the go; put on a pair of Hoby's; over-did it in perfuming my handkerchief, and had to recommence de novo; could not please myself in tying my cravat; lost three quarters of an hour by that, tore two pairs of kid gloves in putting them hastily on; was obliged to go gently to work with the third; lost another quarter of an hour by this; drove off furiously in my chariot but had to return for my splendid snuff-box, as I knew that I should eclipse the circle by it.