Draped in Dissent: Sartorial Politics, Class Dynamics, and the Visual Construction of Female Identity in Wilkie Collins’ The Woman in White

Abstract

In Victorian society, identity was not solely an internal construct but was also externally validated through visible markers that made social status discernible within established hierarchies. In mid-nineteenth-century England, clothing emerged as a significant medium for such legibility, influencing class distinction, gender roles and moral standing. This article revisits the sartorial representation in Wilkie Collins’ The Woman in White to propose that the novel extends beyond the semiotic use of attire as a symbol of identity, instead highlighting a crisis in the ontological stability of appearance. By contextualising the text within mid-Victorian changes, such as the 1851 Great Exhibition, the growth of ready-made clothing markets, Dress Reform debates, and the advent of photographic identification systems, this essay elucidates how clothing became integral to evolving systems of visual authentication and institutional verification. Through detailed analyses of the novel’s initial encounter, Marian Holcombe’s observation of Count Fosco and the asylum exchange of Laura Fairlie and Anne Catherick, the study traces a trajectory from semiotic certainty to material disruption. Utilising Bill Brown’s distinction between object and thing, it argues that sartorial repression transitions from being a transparent signifier to assuming material agency within legal and testimonial contexts. By incorporating structuralist semiotics, Victorian material history and Thing Theory, this article reconceptualises dress not as mere decorative embellishment but as the material interface through which identity, class authority and narrative legitimacy are both constructed and destabilised.