Het Toilet, 1 september 1879, No. 5 1879

E. Cheffer created this print, Het Toilet, on September 1st, 1879. This chromolithograph is made from a series of stones, each inked with a different color. The great skill in this process lies in precisely aligning each layer to create the final image. The print depicts two women standing in fashionable dress, likely made from fabrics like silk, cotton, and wool, all produced by industrial manufacturing. The elaborate construction of the garments—the corsetry, the bustles, the trimmings—speak to the rise of haute couture and the culture of conspicuous consumption. These materials, combined with the skill of dressmakers, resulted in garments designed to display the wearer's wealth and status. Consider the labor involved: from the cotton fields to the textile mills to the seamstresses' workshops, the clothes worn by the elite also reflected the global reach of industrial capitalism, and the often invisible hands of those who made them. The print itself, made by highly skilled printers, shows the way that the aesthetics of fashion were entering into mass culture through print media.