Last month we examined the bodice or ‘body’ section of an outfit and here we focus on one of its main features, the sleeves. In women’s dress and, to a degree, menswear, sleeves have protected our arms, preserved modesty, conveyed status and helped to create the fashionable silhouette. From the late-1000s, when classical T-shaped garments first began to acquire more shaping, slender sleeves with elongated cuffs prompted condemnation from Christian moralists.

For centuries and across cultures, exaggerated trailing sleeves of fine cloth or silk continued to signify a leisured, aristocratic lifestyle. Conversely, linen shirt or shift sleeves were only revealed when labourers removed their outerwear: indeed to roll up one’s sleeves came to mean preparing for hard work. Lower sleeves were easily soiled and separate washable over-sleeves also became common in certain occupations, from butchers’ blue sleeves to nurses’ starched white ward sleeves.

Until relatively recently, between the wars, when the new fashion for acquiring a suntan inspired simple summer sundresses, it was considered indecent for women to bare their shoulders and arms, especially by day. Late-18th- and 19th century etiquette demanded modest long sleeves for daywear, these being shortened during the late afternoon and evening, for a more formal, alluring effect. Consequently many women’s gowns were created with alternative long- and short-sleeved bodices, enabling outfits to be adapted for different occasions. Even today at elite functions, sleeves are usual when dining, sleeveless gowns favoured for balls.

Varying the sleeves is also an effective way of reinventing an existing dress or blouse and some early dressmaking patterns offered several different sleeve options for one garment. Sleeves are also sensitive to fashion, integral to the prevailing style: for instance, early English portraits demonstrate how Tudor ladies’ sleeves comprised two distinct parts: the narrow upper sleeve matching the bodice and vast turned-back cuffs of contrasting material or fur. During the Stuart period, exuberant jewelled silk sleeves often revealed glimpses of fine under-sleeves, while Georgian dress celebrated ornate sleeve ruffles and flounces.

In the 19th century a progression of sleeve styles evolved, as fashion accelerated: from the puffed gigot sleeves of the late-1820s/early-1830s, revived in the 1890s, to the uncomfortably narrow sleeves of the 1840s and 1880s, sleeves provide one of the most helpful clues when dating old family photographs.