Iconic Beauty of the Gibson Girl and her Look: New 6-Pack of Coloring Pages
“The Gibson Girl influenced a rapidly expanding middle-class, busily climbing up the social ladder. Young women modeled their clothes, gestures, hair, and features on the Gibson specifications”
When I was a child, I found my mother’s collection of “Gibson Girl” dolls. I realized my mother was obsessed with the Gibson Girl look and Gibson Girls in general, but I never fully understood why. She bought very expensive porcelain Gibson Girl dolls, each wearing a carefully contrived Edwardian dress with ornate details and placed them precariously around rooms. It’s only years later as I began to study iconic beauty of fashion throughout the ages that I too began to be obsessed with the Gibson Girl look.
So much so that I decided to focus my second full-length, coloring book collection on the Gibson Girl. (Check out my first full-length fashion coloring book The Roaring 20s: The Golden Age of Paris Fashion if you love flappers and the jazz age. ) So I’m writing this post not only to announce my brand new collection of 6 Gibson Girl adult coloring pages, but also to examine the fashion of the Gibson Girl and why she is still so relevant more than a century after her birth.
And if you’re still on the fence about starting a coloring project or coloring book, you should know that there are at least six major health and therapeutic benefits of coloring. The sooner you start coloring, the sooner you gain peace of mind :) But not all coloring pages and books provide the same health benefits. Mandalas offer unique therapeutic benefits beyond traditional coloring forms.
Gibson Girl 6 Pack of Fashion Coloring pages
Are you a colorist who enjoys coloring fashion coloring books? Why not download our digital 6-pack of Gibson Girl Fashion Coloring Pages?
Who was the Gibson Girl? Who fashioned her an icon of female beauty? What was it about these women who appeared to be perpetually in casual disarray--their hair piled almost haphazardly on top of their heads as if in danger of tumbling down at any moment?
The Gibson Girl was an American icon created by renowned pen-and-ink illustrator Charles Dana Gibson that started in the 1890s but spanned two full decades. Gibson’s illustration style was so unique and so beautiful that many have suggested the Gibson Girl look represents the first real national beauty standard for American women. Her image appeared on just about every commodity imaginable, including saucers, tablecloths, umbrellas, fans, spoons and even ashtrays. You can see just how popular she was by looking at this vintage plate which bears her likeness, manufactured circa 1900.
Vintage Edwardian Plate featuring Gibson Girl circa 1900
The Gibson Girl was in essence not only the prelude to the pinup girl, she was also the original Barbie Doll.
The Fashion and Features of the Gibson Girl
Gibson Hairstyles
The Gibson Girl’s near effortless or “just-thrown-together'' look was largely mediated by three popular hairstyles of the period, which imbued the face with a sense of romance, whimsy, and freedom: the bouffant, pompadour, or chignon. The bouffant hairstyle is just another name for hair that’s raised high on the head that covers the ears or is left loose around the face for a romantic look. The Gibson Girl upswept bouffant was actually a renovation of the original French bouffant hairstyle that became a signature look for the Rococo period. In each case, the loose, romantic look of the Gibson bouffant lent an air of freedom to her attire. When the Gibson Girl didn’t have her hair upswept in a bouffant, pompadour or a chignon, her hair was left loose with flowing curls, symbolizing a burgeoning freedom from restrictive styles for women.
You can see these looks in this famous Gibson Girl hairstyle montage:
Gibson Girl Hairstyles— Montage of Illustrations
Save 30% off Our New Gibson Girl Coloring Book
24+ fabulous fashions to color featuring scenes from New York during the Gilded Age
(This book is Printed and Shipped!)
The Gibson Form
But it wasn’t just her hair that looked like she had spent less than five minutes “styling” it, it was also the Gibson Girl form that made her the envy of all women and drove men mad with desire. While the female form in previous periods had iconically celebrated small, petite and even dainty women, Gibson Girls broke with tradition and began to iconify a more realistic and taller female form. In contrast to the “fragile female” form that dominated the Victorian era, the Gibson Girl was statuesque and extremely narrow-waisted. In fact, the Gibson Girl not only became an icon of female beauty, her “look” actually reshaped the female torso. The infamous “S” curve torso for which she became known was achieved by wearing a swanbill or “Edwardian” corset. The swanbill corset became popular from the late 1890s to the early 1910s and actually forced the torso forward and the hips back--creating a “voluptuous” S curve.
The two images below, an advertisement for a swanbill corset and a photograph of a Gibson Girl in the corset, highlight just how much the corset reshaped the female form into an icon of female beauty:
Advertisement for a Swanbill Corset—Gibson Girl
Gibson Girl in a swnbill corset
Gibson Girls Sleeves
Beyond the bouffant and the swanbill corset, a signature component of the Gibson Girl look was dress sleeves, which started enlarging in the late Victorian era and then began literally ballooning during the mid 1890s. In fact, most people can identify a Gibson Girl primarily by her almost ridiculously large, balloon dress sleeves. Small, perky Victorian sleeves which once pointed upward in 1890, began expanding, reaching a peak in 1895 and then gradually began sagging downward by 1897.
In this fashion plate from 1892, just before the Gibson Girl began to enter into the national imagination, you can see a much smaller, practical and feminine sleeve.
Fashion Plate from 1892
The following two fashion plates from 1895, just 3 years later, showcase how elaborately expansive and “hard” Gibson Girls’ sleeves were at the height of the fashion trend:
Gibson Girl Fashion Plate 1895
Gibson Girl Fashion Plate 1895 — Hard Sleeves
Here in this picture, you can see a Gibson Girl fashion plate from 1897, showing the sleeves beginning to sag downward, for a softer, more feminine look.
Gibson Girl Fashion Plate 1897— Soft Sagging Sleeves
Gibson Girl Sports Attire
Female sports expanded significantly during the period. Improvements to the bicycle in 1892 inspired popular adoption of bicycling, and it began to take off as a national pastime as well as a basic form of transportation. By 1897, there were purportedly over 10 million cyclists.
While men were enthusiastic cyclists, it was women specifically that became obsessed with the sport. The bicycle specifically helped to open women’s spheres, not only allowing them access to sports, but also enabling them to leave the home and find employment. And if women were going to cycle, they needed proper attire. Enter Amelia Bloomer and her eponymous fashion “bloomers” or pantaloons in 1849 which became synonymous not only with suffragettes, but also with women cyclists. If women cyclists didn’t have bloomers, they settled for a split skirt. And of course, the sports jacket completed the outfit.
Women’s Cycling Outfit 1890s
The Gibson Girl, as an american fashion and beauty icon, also became synonymous with cycling. She was athletic, educated and even emancipated as she was often seen cycling through Central park during the height of the bicycle craze, enrolling at the University, and even able to go to work. She cycled through Central Park in New York, epitomizing the bicycle craze.
Gibson Girl Cycling Illustration by Charles Dana Gibson for Scribners
Gibson Girl Hats & Accessories
Hats were equally elaborate, ornate, and in some cases excessive--showing again the Rococo influence on the period. They were trimmed with elaborate decoration including ribbons, feathers and flowers. But it wasn’t uncommon to see whole birds sitting atop a Gibson Girl’s hat.
Gibson Girl Hat and Acessories
In terms of jewelry, the Gibson Girl became known for her signature ivory cameo brooch, always fashioned at the nape of her neck.
Edwardian Cameo Brooch—Signature Gibson Girl Jewelry
Outerwear began to expand to cover or encase increasingly expansive sleeves. However it was the cape that eventually began to do double duty as it allowed the rapidly expanding sleeve to breathe.
A Uniquely American Femininity
“American identity searched for idealizations in art. The Gibson Girl satisfied that need by captivating the imagination of the country and by providing a perfect image of femininity, uniquely American. ”
Gibson has often been dismissed and derided for inventing the Barbie Doll of the Edwardian period. But far from creating an iconic look, Charles Gibson did so much for women—he gave rise to the modern woman.
Gibson Girls were depicted as an equal to men, and not just beautiful, but sexually dominant. In many cases, the Gibson Girl was portrayed not only as single but uncommitted--independent. By casting his women as both feminine and intelligent or as beautiful and sporty, strong and independent, his illustrations helped a nation to see women not as ornaments, but as full human beings worthy of respect and perhaps even the right to vote.
“Plenty of Good Fish in the Sea” Pen & Ink Illustration by Charles Dana Gibson
By depicting women out and about in the world, free from the constrictions of their corset or their manners--carefree at the beach or riding bicycles with short skirts--he enabled the world to see women as multi-faceted beings.
Gibson Girls at the Beach Illustration by Charles Dana Gibson
In short, Gibson allowed women to become full human beings without threatening those in power who needed to keep women docile and subservient. In this respect Gibson was a feminist and his work did more to advance women’s rights--including suffrage--than almost any other in the period.
Gibson Girl 6-Pack of Fashion Coloring Pages
While this 6-pack is just the first installment of my full-length coloring book, each coloring page in my Gibson Girl Coloring Book hopes to depict women in the Edwardian period as they actually lived. So you’ll find not only afternoon tea dresses and evening gowns, but also outerwear, nightgowns, “bathing suits” and even sporting attire.
Furthermore, because the Gibson Girl look also focused so heavily on the hair and face, you’ll also find more than full-body fashion plates, but also semi-portrait and full closeup portraits showing details of hair, face, and accessories.
Here is a FREE sample coloring page from my new digital Gibson Girl 6-pack. Simply click on the thumbnail image to download the full size image.
Free Gibson Girl Coloring Page at Chub and Bug
If you feel unsure about how to color a page or a book, learning more about basic color theory can be a big help and transform your lackluster pages into radiant beauty. We also offer another great FREE tool to help you get started with color theory: Color Scheme Kit. Our color scheme kit includes a guide, worksheets, and test pages!
If, after reading this, you’re starting to fall in love with Gibson Girls and their look, you may want to color more than one fashion coloring page. If so, why not purchase the entire digital Gibson Girl 6-pack of fashion coloring pages now?
Download the Gibson Girl 6-Pack now! We’re running a sale and they are 50% off :)
UPDATE: Our full-length printed Gibson Girl coloring book is now out: Gibson Girl: American Fashion Icon! What’s more, you can get this new book at a 30% discount :)
Gibson Girl: American Fashion Icon — Fabulous Fashions from New York During the Gilded Age by Lynn Langmade
If you love coloring fashion, please also do check out our full-length Roaring 20s Fashion Coloring Book
