Ayda Loewen-Clarke, Creative Programming and Digital Media Intern
The Victorians loved to get into the festive spirit on holidays, and Valentine’s Day was no exception. Many people hand-made cards to exchange with their loved ones, but there was a burgeoning commercialization of the holiday as well, with stationary stores and print shops seeing a profitable market in a wide variety of holiday greetings. While many familiar Valentine’s Day motifs emerged or were popularized during the Victorian era, some of their traditions were a little odd by today’s standards.
Want to make a super unique card to impress your hunny this V-day? Read below for a step-by-step guide to an unforgettable Victorian-inspired holiday greeting. Plus, click the red text for examples and inspiration from the London Museum’s Valentine’s Day Card Collection.
Step 1. Lean into maximalism
Victorian-era aesthetics were influenced heavily by nature, as seen in the art nouveau movement. Every surface in a home, or piece of fabric in an outfit, was an opportunity for ornate, often floral, design elements. Valentine’s Day cards were no different - many commercial card makers and homemade designs embraced bright colours, mixed textures, and layered materials on top of one another. This is not a time for minimalism. With a Victorian Valentine’s Day card, more is more!
Lean into maximalism: even the base layer of this card has lots going on!
Step 2. Include a 3-D element
One way to make a Valentine’s card stand out is to add a 3-D element. While this may make the card more difficult or expensive to send in the mail, it creates a unique card that’s sure to impress. Natural materials such as dried flowers and leaves or feathers stand off the page on their own, and were quite common on cards. This effect could also be achieved by using paper springs to raise an image, or even by simply glueing a toy or decoration like a stuffed bird right onto the card.
Putting on a ribbon and dried leaves to give it some dimension.
Step 3. Add SOME ANIMALS
Lobsters, crabs, chickens, cats, and more all make appearances on Victorian Valentine’s Day cards. These animals were sometimes accompanied by puns or loving phrases that incorporated them, but also sometimes appear out of nowhere! Seemingly random and unseasonal animals were also common on Christmas greeting cards in the Victorian era - you can read more about that and see an example here.
A bird would be a more common, boring choice than a crab or a lobster.
Step 4. Be a little mean
In the Victorian era, cards were not only given to loved ones. Comic cards could be given to get a laugh or get a point across to someone you weren’t interested in. In the London Museum’s collection, a comic poem full of puns takes the long way around to tell the card’s receiver that a marriage to them would be a “cat-astrophe.” Another card not-so-lovingly calls the receiver a bad egg.
A rude Valentine’s Day poem.
Step 5. Don’t forget your hair!
Hair was considered to be a sentimental object in the Victorian era, and it was common for people to carry around locks of hair from their lovers, or from deceased family members. They would even have jewellery crafted from it! It’s no surprise, then, that Valentine’s Day cards could include a lock of hair - to add a real personal touch. While I’m sure there were romantic ways to execute this, some examples of hair on cards are quite horrifying.
Disclaimer: this is cat hair, not human.
And there you have it - your very own historically accurate(-ish) Victorian Valentine’s Day card.
Finished product.
To Learn more about Victorian Valentine’s Day cards:
Museum of London Valentine’s Day Card Collection
Journal of Victorian Culture, “Victorian Valentines: From Sentiment to Satire”
The Guardian, “Victorian Valentine’s Day Cards in Pictures”