161 Madame Récamier, François Gérard, 1802.
Perhaps at no period between the earliest human civilization and the 1920s had women worn so little as they wore in the early years of the nineteenth century. All female attire seemed to have been designed for tropical climates, and yet the climate of Europe can have been no different in 1800 from what it was in 1850, when women wore ten times as many clothes. In France and England, the leaders in fashion, the accepted garb was a kind of light nightdress reaching, it is true, to the ankles but extremely décolleté even in the daytime. Ruffs came into the mode again, and there was a passion for shawls. Such shawls came originally from Cashmere (Kashmir), India, but the war with England made it difficult for the French to import them, and they therefore began to manufacture similar shawls of their own. Great Britain, too, began to produce imitation Cashmere shawls at Paisley. It was considered the mark of the fashionable lady to be able to wear a shawl with grace, and it formed an essential part of every woman’s wardrobe.
Napoleon’s expedition to Egypt had induced in his compatriots a new wave of Orientalism which made turbans fashionable, and these were worn in England as well. Otherwise the outline aimed at a ‘classical’ effect, with the emphasis on vertical line; but the Oriental influences contributed to modify this ideal, and the classical style only lasted from about 1800 to 1803. An Egyptian influence could be noted for the next three years, and then, owing to the Peninsular War and interest in all things Spanish, gave way to Spanish styles, Spanish ornamentation being superimposed on what was still thought of as a classical garment.
In 1802 there was a cessation of hostilities between England and France, but the Peace of Amiens was short-lived, and for the next twelve years England and France were cut off from one another. When the English ladies flocked over to Paris in 1814 after Napoleon’s first abdication, they found to their astonishment that English and French fashions had notably diverged. The French ladies were still wearing white, but the skirt, instead of falling straight to the ankles, now flared out slightly at the hem. English costume, on the other hand, was beginning to look ‘romantic’, with echoes of such Elizabethan elements as puffed and slashed sleeves. The result of this confrontation was that the English ladies immediately abandoned their insular fashions and adopted French modes.
161 Madame Récamier, François Gérard, 1802.
162 La belle Zélie, J.-A.-D. Ingres, 1806.
163 I have not learned my book, Mamma, Adam Buck, c. 1800.
164 One of a pair of matching dresses worn by two sisters at the Duchess of Richmond’s ‘Waterloo Ball’ in Brussels on 15 June 1815.
165, 166 Summer walking dresses, 1803 (LEFT) and 1818 (RIGHT). Soon after Waterloo, French dresses ceased to be severely ‘classical’ and, with their heavy flouncing, foreshadowed the style to come.
The exact opposite happened in the case of men’s dress. As we have seen, the English influence on male costume was already marked at the end of the eighteenth century, but now Frenchmen plainly accepted English dress as the law. This was due in no small degree to the superior skill of London tailors, trained to work in wool broadcloth. Such cloth, unlike light silk and other flimsy materials, can be stretched and moulded to the body. The clothes of the eighteenth-century aristocrat were in general very badly made and did not fit at all snugly to the body. Such snug fitting was the very essence of dandyism, and George Brummell prided himself on the fact that his clothes did not show a single wrinkle and that his breeches fitted his legs like a natural skin. Dandyism does not imply gorgeousness in male attire; the exact opposite is the case. There was no embroidery on the dandy’s coat; it was made of plain cloth, with the cut-away originally derived from the hunting coat, and with a preference for the primary colours. Brummell’s coat was invariably dark blue, but it was usual to wear waistcoat and breeches of a different colour; for example, a crimson waistcoat and yellow breeches could be worn with a blue coat, or a white waistcoat and sage-green breeches with a black coat. The collar, which stood rather high at the back of the neck, was sometimes of velvet. Waistcoats were in general short and square-cut, with perhaps a couple of inches showing below the front parts of the coat. The upper buttons were left undone to display the frill of the shirt. In court dress the waistcoat was of white satin embroidered with gold thread.
167 Morning walking dress for April, fashion plate from Le Beau Monde, 1818.
168 Thomas Bewick, after James Ramsay, c. 1810. He wears the cut-away coat and top hat of English country costume, but still has knee-breeches.
169 Captain Barclay, ‘the celebrated pedestrian’, c. 1820. Trousers have replaced knee-breeches.
In the daytime it was usual to wear tight-fitting breeches fitted into riding boots, but in the evening silk stockings were worn with pumps. Some men wore pantaloons or tights with tasselled hessians. Trousers were also worn, but, although close-fitting, did not show the shape of the leg and ended above the ankles. Very wide trousers à la Turque were also worn, with an anticipation of the wide trousers which were later to be called ‘Cossacks’.
The dandy was shown not only by the cut of his clothes and the snugness of his breeches but by the elaboration of his neckwear. The collar of the shirt was worn upright; the two points projected on to the cheeks and were kept in place by a neckcloth, either in the form of a cravat or a stock. Some dandies were alleged to spend a whole morning in the arrangement of their cravats. Large squares of lawn, muslin or silk, folded cornerwise into a band, were wrapped round the neck and tied in a knot or bow in front. There is the well-known story of a caller visiting Brummell in the middle of the morning and finding his valet arranging his cravat. On the floor was a large heap of discarded cravats, and when the visitor inquired what they were, the valet replied, ‘sir, those are our failures.’ The stock was a made-up, stiffened neckband, buckled behind. Since the wearing of either a cravat or a stock made it difficult, if not impossible, to turn or lower the head, it contributed in no small degree to the dandy’s imperturbability and hauteur.
Top hats of some form were worn at all times of day, but the correct hat for evening was the bicorne, in the shape of a crescent, the two brims being pressed against one another, which enabled the hat to be carried under the arm. Hair was short, and it was the fashion to wear it somewhat disheveled à la Titus. Most civilians were clean-shaven, but side-whiskers and occasionally moustaches were worn by military men. The wearing of swords had been entirely abandoned, but it was fashionable to carry a cane; indeed, no well-dressed man was ever seen in the street without one.
Brummell’s dress had always been of stolid sobriety, but after his departure in 1819 (he fled to the Continent to escape his creditors) the clothes of the dandies, or those who thought themselves such, began to develop all kinds of extravagances. The top hat swelled out at the top until its crown was wider than the brim, the visible ends of the shirt collar came up almost to the eyes, the stock or cravat grew tighter and higher, the shoulders of the coat were padded and the waist nipped in with the aid of a corset. Trousers had now become almost universal, either ending just above the half-boots or strapped under the instep. The caricaturists made merry with this new mode, for example in Cruikshank’s Monstrosities of 1822.[171]
170 Kensington Garden dresses for June, fashion plate from Le Beau Monde, 1808. An early example of trousers.
171 Monstrosities of 1822, George Cruikshank. Example of exaggerated ‘dandy’ modes seen in Hyde Park near the statue of Achilles.
172 Carriage dress, 1824.
The same year was a turning-point in female dress. The waist, which had been high for a quarter of a century, now resumed its normal position, and when this happens it inevitably becomes tighter and tighter. As a result, the corset once more became an essential element of female dress, even for small girls. A contemporary advertisement advises a mother to make her daughter lie face down on the floor in order that she might then place a foot in the small of the back to obtain the necessary purchase on the laces.
The effect of tight-lacing can be increased by widening the skirt and puffing out the sleeves. Both of these were done in the 1820s. Early in the decade the skirts were still fairly narrow, but they were weighted at the bottom by a flounce, frills and other decorations, sometimes even by a band of fur. The sleeves were also modified, first by a little puff at the shoulders, which was imagined to be a harking back to the dresses of the Renaissance. The Romantic movement was by now in full swing: the novels of Walter Scott found innumerable readers and every young woman seems to have wanted to look like Amy Robsart or another of his heroines. There was even a vogue for dresses made of Scotch plaid. About 1825 the little puffed sleeve was provided with another sleeve over it, usually of transparent gauze. When this was made opaque, the sleeve assumed the curious leg-of-mutton shape so characteristic of the period.[178] After 1830 the skirt was shorter, but even wider than before, and the sleeves became enormous.
173 French and German costumes, 1826.
174 Morning and evening dress, 1831.
So did hats. The day cap worn in the home was much expanded and no longer tied under the chin. Turbans became extremely wide, so that they no longer looked like turbans but became veritable hats. The hats themselves were extremely wide in the brim. Though usually made of straw, they were also of silk and satin and were trimmed with a mass of flowers, ribbons and feathers in striking colours. From 1827 onwards such hats were worn even in the evening at the theatre, making it almost impossible for anyone sitting behind them to see the stage. The diarist Croker complains that even at the dinner table the size of the hats of his two companions prevented him from seeing his own plate. Caricaturists of the period delighted to show hats so huge that they served as umbrellas, not only for the wearer but for two companions walking by her side.
175 Male and female riding costume, 1831. The equestrienne has masculinized the upper half of her costume, but wears a long, trailing skirt.
176 Dresses. Fashion plate, 1829.
Hair was most elaborately arranged, with curls over the forehead and a chignon at the back of the head. Artificial hair was sometimes added in the evening in the form of what was known as the ‘Apollo knot’, fixed on the top of the head and decorated with flowers, feathers or combs. Some of these were of tortoiseshell set with jewels. Another possible addition was the ‘swiss bodkin’, a long hat-pin with a detachable metallic head, derived, it would seem, from the peasant costumes of Switzerland.
177 Coat, c. 1833.
178 Walking dress, c. 1830. The little puffed sleeve of the late 1820s has become the ‘leg-of-mutton’ sleeve of the early 1830s.
After about 1828 skirts became slightly shorter, but sleeves continued to expand. The bodice gave an impression of width. In the evening it was décolleté, sometimes extremely so, with a straight-across top edge to the corsage. In the daytime it was fashionable to wear a ruff, once more an imitation of what was imagined to have been the Elizabethan mode. A wide, flat collar called a ‘pelerine’ covered the shoulders. This was sometimes provided with hanging ends and was then known as a ‘fichu-pelerine’. Out of doors in the daytime women wore a pelisse with enormous sleeves and many capes. With evening dress went various kinds of mantle. Shawls were still worn, but were less fashionable than they had been in the previous decade. In spite of the increased fullness of the skirt, reticules were still carried; muffs were fashionable throughout the decade, although they became somewhat smaller towards its close. A fan was an essential part of the evening toilette, and a large bouquet was often carried as well. The parasol was another essential part of the fashionable lady’s equipment, but it was rarely put up because it would have had to be of enormous size to protect the hat. Instead it was carried in the hand. A great deal of jewellery was worn in the form of lockets, crosses, gold bracelets, mosaic and cameo brooches and gold chains supporting little bottles of perfume.
179 In the garden. Fashion plate, 1840. The modest little poke bonnet has replaced the elaborate hats of the previous decade.
180 Florence Nightingale and her sister Parthenope, W. White, c. 1836. The balloon sleeves, which have now slipped off the shoulder, are about to vanish altogether.
In 1837 the romantic, flamboyant modes of the first part of the decade began to be modified. Sleeves were no longer so wide, and the bulge had begun to slip down the arm. Skirts were longer again and did not show a woman’s ankles when she walked. The boned corsage fitted closely to the body and was adorned in the front with a fan-shaped piece of material. The most striking change was in headgear: tied firmly under the chin, it was no longer a hat but a bonnet. It was worn close to the head in the form of a coal-scuttle and gave an impression of extreme modesty. By comparison with the fashions of the 1830s, indeed, the fashions of the 1840s became positively mouselike. Bright colours gave way to dark greens and browns. Shawls returned to favour. Elaborate hairdressing was abandoned except for the ringlets which framed the face.
Men’s clothes, too, became more sombre at this period. Pinched-in waists and padded shoulders were abandoned as well as the flamboyant waistcoats and the dangling seals. The cut-away coat was still worn both in the evening and in the daytime, but in the evening it was now usually black. Many younger men began to prefer the frock coat in the daytime, and in summer the jacket, which had shorter skirts. Frilled shirts vanished from day wear, although they were for a time still fashionable in the evening. The cravat was smaller, although it still kept the shirt collar against the cheek. Sometimes the collar was almost entirely concealed by it. Sportsmen affected spotted neckcloths, kept in place with a pin. The top hat was universally worn by all ranks of society. Its crown was very high at the beginning of the decade, but grew smaller towards its close. In the country a low-crowned informal hat called a ‘wide-awake’ was sometimes worn. Nether garments consisted of trousers, rather tight and strapped under the instep. An alternative was pantaloons, which were tighter still and also strapped under the foot. Breeches were worn in the country, in which case they were made of leather or cord, and also at court, where they were made of white cassinère. It was unusual for trousers to be made of the same material as coats. Scotch plaids were popular in winter, white drill trousers in summer.
Overcoats of the period show a surprising number of varieties: the top coat, the chesterfield, which was slightly waisted, and the paletot, which was a short coat and could take the place of the overcoat on occasion. The curricle, which was used for driving, had one or several pleats over the shoulders. Cloaks were worn over evening dress. The overcoats worn in France and Germany were essentially English in origin.
The anonymous author of a book on etiquette entitled The Habits of Good Society, published in the 1840s, tells us that the well-dressed man needed four kinds of coat: a morning coat, a frock coat, a dress coat and an overcoat. He needed four of the first and one each of the others, the cost of the seven coats being £18 (i.e. little more than £2 each). In addition he needed six pairs of morning and one of evening trousers, at a total cost of £9; and four morning waistcoats and one evening waistcoat, costing £4 in all. Another £10 was to be allowed for gloves, linen, hats, scarves and neckties, and £5 for boots. The well-dressed man of moderate means could therefore fit himself out for under £50 a year, which by modern standards seems extremely little. Of course the dandies, who still persisted into the 1840s, spent very much more than this. They were regarded as relics of a former, dissipated age. The dominant figure in English life was now a respectable bourgeois, who had no desire to make himself conspicuous but wished merely to present a gentlemanly appearance, both in his counting-house and at home. The author we have already quoted recommends dark blue or black for town wear, although he allows a tweed suit to be worn in the country. What we are watching, in fact, in this period is the fading away of flamboyance and colour from men’s garments, not to be recovered until very modern times. It was considered ungentlemanly to wear anything striking.
181 Male costume, 1847–48.
The same was true of women; quietness and delicacy were the qualities most admired. Indeed, it was fashionable to be, or to appear, a little souffrante; ‘rude health’ was positively vulgar. Rouge was entirely abandoned, ‘interesting pallor’ was admired, and some foolish young women even went so far as to drink vinegar in order to conform to the prevailing fashion. The prosperous businessman, who had now begun to desert the city and to establish his family in a fine new house in the fashionable suburbs, asked two things of his wife: first that she should be a model of domestic virtues and second that she should not do anything at all. Her complete idleness was the mark of his social status. Work of any kind was looked down on, and the clothes which reflected this attitude were of an extremely restrictive kind. Indeed, the large number of petticoats worn at this period prevented women from pursuing any activities without fatigue.
This seems all the more strange when we consider that in the world outside the home the 1840s was a decade of quite extraordinary innovation and upheaval. It saw the introduction of railways; it also witnessed a series of social upheavals culminating in 1848, the Year of Revolutions. In all this, women were supposed to have no part, and the vast majority of women seem to have accepted this situation with meekness and resignation. Prudery reigned supreme; skirts were now down to the ground, and the little feet in flat-heeled slippers could barely be glimpsed beneath the underskirts. As sensible a writer as Thackeray thinks it necessary to apologize for mentioning ankles. There never was a period when women, with the exception of the straight-across décolleté in the evening, were more completely covered up. The poke bonnet prevented even their faces from being seen except from directly in front.
182 Convalescence, after Eugène Lami, c. 1845.
Such a state of affairs did not, naturally, suit all women, and, in France at least, there was a wave of rebellion, symbolized by the figure of the lionne. A contemporary writer defines the lionne as a ‘rich married woman, pretty and coquettish, who can handle the whip and the pistol as well as her husband, ride like a lancer, smoke like a dragoon, and drink any quantity of iced champagne’. ‘Ride like a lancer’ is the operative phrase. There was a passion for horsemanship among women in the early 1840s, and all fashionable magazines of the period show riding costume. The curious point about it is that it is masculinized down to the waist but no further. The practical thing, of course, would have been to masculinize the nether limbs; but it was unthinkable at this period that women should wear bifurcated garments, and they always rode side-saddle. Working from the head to the feet, we may note that the correct female riding habit consisted of a man’s top hat with a veil rather loosely attached to it, a man’s collar and tie, a man’s coat and waistcoat and an extremely voluminous skirt. In fact the skirt was so voluminous that it reached almost to the ground when the wearer was in the saddle (as can be seen quite plainly in the equestrian statues of Queen Victoria at this period) and made it almost impossible to alight from the horse without help from a groom. The unconscious motivation is plain enough. One of the purposes of dress is (or perhaps we should say was) to show that the wearer is of high social status and can afford to employ a retinue of servants.
The essential lines of female costume during the 1840s may be briefly summarized. The waist was low, and the lines of decoration on the bodice were designed to make it look even more so. The sleeves were either tight or had a bulge over the lower arm; the skirts were long and full. Bodice and skirt were usually made in one, with a back fastening by means of hooks and eyes, but from the middle of the decade it was possible to have a jacket bodice separate from the skirt. The jacket bodice was close-fitting and buttoned down the front. There was also a garment known as a gilet-cuirasse which looked like a man’s waistcoat and was sometimes a separate garment and sometimes joined to the jacket. Skirts were made to stand out by lining, and sometimes there was an additional woollen interlining added to the upper part of the skirt at the back. Many petticoats were worn, and what might be described as the tea-cosy effect was further emphasized by the use of a small bustle made of horsehair. This, to the confusion of modern students, was known as a ‘crinoline’. It was quite different from the crinoline of the future, but etymologically the term was more correct than when it was applied to the steel hoops of the 1850s and 1860s, for crin is the French for ‘horsehair’, and that was the substance of which the early ‘crinolines’ was made. Skirts were nearly always adorned with flounces, which might be double or multiple, or else with ruching and other decoration.
183 Fashions for April, 1850. Examples of the extremely modest styles of the 1840s. The Queen’s passion for Balmoral encouraged the use of Scotch plaids.
Scholars distinguish four types of day dresses – the pelisse-robe, the redingote, the round dress and the peignoir – but there was a considerable amount of confusion and overlapping, and by the end of the decade the first two terms were used indiscriminately. In general it may be said that the pelisse-robe was worn indoors in the morning, the redingote was used for the ‘promenade’, and the rather more decorated round dress was worn in the afternoon. The peignoir was an informal dress worn only in the morning, but it was not in the modern sense of the word a dressing-gown.
184 Winter dress, 1849.
Evening dresses were décolleté, off the shoulder and either straight across or with a slight dip in the middle. The term for the latter was en cœur. The horizontal pleats across the top of the corsage are very typical of this period, as was also the deep ‘bertha’ which fell from the top of the corsage to halfway down the sleeves and was made up of lace and frills or ribbon. The body of the bodice came to a point in front and was strongly boned. The favourite materials for day dresses were broadcloth, merino, foulard, organdie, gingham and tarlatan. Evening dresses were usually made of shot silk or velvet.
Outdoor garments were of various types. The shawl had now come back into favour and was sometimes very large with a fringed border. Paisley shawls were no longer considered a mere substitute for imported cashmere, for the Queen’s residence at Balmoral had brought all things Scottish into favour. Various new forms of the cloak were invented, and were given different names according to whether they had capes, sleeves or slits through the arms or all three together. The differences between casawecks, polkas and pardessus were trifling; the names are a reminder of the influence at this time of some of the costumes of Eastern Europe, particularly those of Hungary.
Everything was done at this period to make women look as small as possible, partly perhaps in deference to Queen Victoria, who was of diminutive stature. Footwear, with rare exceptions, was therefore made without heels. The usual form was the slipper, sometimes laced over the ankles like that of a ballerina but without the reinforced toe. Such slippers were made of silk or crêpe in colours matching the dress. Very small feet were admired as a mark of gentility. In the street it was customary to wear cloth boots with elastic sides, but genteel ladies did not venture much abroad. By 1850, mid-Victorian modes, for men and women, seemed to have set in a mould. Those who wore them saw no reason why they should ever change.