Journal Journey into the Year 1811: La Belle Assemblée, August

The August issue of La Belle Assemblée is here! This month please pretend that you've missed the July issue and are reading the new August number, flip to the fashion plate, and, excited with what you've seen, run to show the issue to your sisters. You three pass it around, examining and critiquing details, but then someone mentions another topic, and the magazine is forgotten until later. Today we'll look at the plate, and next time I'll present the rest of the text. Later we'll back up to July.

Now, as I always write, please don't forget to read the London report from Ackerman's, and those from Weimar and Paris.

• Sabine in Weimar: Journal des Luxus und der Moden
• Alessandra in Paris: Journal des Dames et des Modes
• Maggie, in London: Ackermann's

The August issue contains just two pages of fashion news (p. 101-102), and only one plate, despite the title reading "prints" in the plural.

FASHIONS FOR September, 1811.
EXPLANATION OF THE PRINTS OF FASHION.

WALKING DRESS.

A large French bonnet, composed of fine India muslin ; the crown in the cone form, finished on the top with a bow of lace, trimmed round the face with a deep full frill of Mechlin lace, and lined throughout with a bright sea-green sarsnet. A short round dress of India jacconot muslin, cut round at the bosom, and ornamented round the bottom with a worked border, edged with small tucks. A short round French coat in green sarsnet, falling back from the shoulder, trimmed round the arm-holes with lace, confined at the waist with Margate braces. A beautiful long lace scarf cloak thrown over the shoulders, and caught up behind in a long loop of ribband, carefully suspended upon the right shoulder. Gloves of York tan. Shoes of white Morocco. Parasol of brown and green shot silk.

Notes

So, what do you think? I've been peering and squinting at the plate, and while I can make out that the scarf-cloak is lace, and that the dress is ornamented with embroidery, and the hat stands out only too well, the Margate braces just don't show up. The Eastern influence is apparent again in the pointy effects: the cone hat and the assertive diamond shapes on the dress border, a departure from the undulating floral embroideries so long in fashion. This would have been an expensive day dress. The lace is one key: real Flemish Mechlin lace was costly because it used fine threads and took longer to make than many other laces and dealers today put high prices on antique Mechlin as well. Wikipedia has a nice article about Mechlin.

Cone hats. Oh dear, must I? Really?

Embroidery. Occasionally La Belle Assemblee made embroidery designs available. At the beginning of the 19th century they retain the attenuated lightness dominant through the last years of the previous century. Swags and airy vines and sprigs are common, and narrow borders. The exception is French imperial style, especially in goldwork, which feels positively encrusted, and heavy on the gold. As the years pass, the designs become fuller and rounder and more tightly composed.

Mix of spiky elements, flowers, and sprigs. La Belle Assemblee, 1811.
Maggie Waterman Roberts, Pinterest board "Regency Embroidery".

Regency pattern from Ackermann's, November 1811.
My Fanciful Muse.

Our own Maggie maintains a very good collection on Pinterest containing patterns from the first and second decades of the 19th century. Another Pinterest board titled "Regency Embroidery and Crafts" by Jeri Whitehorn Rtwr is useful too. A keen observer will see the differences between the offerings of different magazines. For instance, La Belle Assemblee was freuqently more conservative, while Ackermann's went for the really new stuff. The regency page on My Fanciful Muse, by EK Duncan, has a good collection too.

Margate braces. Apparently these were a trim you used to tie outerwear closed with, named for Margate, a seaside resort. Robert Louis Stevenson describes the an outfit in detail I think is meant to titillate, in his Weir of Hermiston, the chapter "Christina's Psalm-Book" although he could have lifted the description from a fashion magazine. In the plate all I can see is that the trim is rather thick and ties, since two ends hang down.

Mechlin lace. See above.

Okay, that's it for now.

I dare anyone to make that hat. In fact, I double-dog, no, triple-dog dare them. If you do, I promise to nibble, and swallow, a little bit of cotton gauze!

Picking, Combing, Carding, Spinning...Weaving: That's What's Happening

Working with wool and alpaca fiber recently.

The subtitle of this blog reads "and, of Course, the Occasional Side Trip". What I've been doing these past months qualifies as more than a little excursion, at this point.

I am hand-spinning wool and alpaca and getting ready to re-learn the art of harness weaving -- you know, a loom that goes "whish swish, whump thump" as you throw the shuttle and pull back on the beater to secure the just-made fabric.

The spinning was necessary; last fall I signed on once again at church to teach children to card and spin a little at this summer's Vacation Bible School. The summer before we'd had fun together but the spinning was execrable. So over months this spring I learned to handle a drop spindle decently and fell in love with what Amos Alden calls an "ancient and honorable craft". So ancient, in fact, it's wound up with pre-civilization.

One of the crop of pinky-red, yellow and fuzzy (!) toadstools
sprouting in our lawn after all the rain and fog.

Here we are, towards summer's end, and there are alpaca and sheep fleeces in the basement, bags of it in the garage -- fodder for another volunteer project -- fleece awaiting picking in a bowl, spindles and spinning wheel in the hallway, and a loom in the family room. They multiplied like the toadstools in our lawn after this summer's weeks of rain and dimness.

Not an excursion, then. Costuming? I've got a pretty beaded reticule on the way and a chintz 1770s anglaise on hold. No then, costuming's not going away. It just has to share space in the calendar and in the brain with work and family, volunteering and with wool picking, scouring, carding, combing, dizzing -- that doesn't mean spinning around until you fall over -- spinning and weaving scarves and warm alpaca blankets, and maybe, a linsey-woolsey petticoat? Let's see what happens.

Meanwhile, the last months unroll below in pictures. One fleece is worth ten thousand threads.

First there was the spinning wheel, a present for my grumumppieth birthday. Built in 1887 somewhere in Scandinavia, it traveled to North Carolina with immigrants and was held on to by their descendants until they unaccountably decided to part with it. A sort of faded reddish color, it's decorated with banding and painted designs in black. Rather chic, I think.

Circa 1887 Scandinavian spinning wheel.

Chic it might be, but it sat. Then I cleaned it and got everything smoothly turning, but it still sat. It's still sitting. I haven't learned to keep up with it!

Then there was the drop spindle that turned up at an antique show. It's from Eastern Europe, and I didn't know until recently that you're supposed to rest it on a surface to support it as it turns. Taking a class from a local professional, it was on this spindle I learned to spin in preparation for Vacation Bible School.

The Eastern European spindle. It has no notch on the pointed
top: you half hitch your yarn to hold it on.

Obligatory cute kitty shot.

Spinning!

Alpaca fleece arrived, part of the VBS project. Had to have lots of fleece ready for children to spin, plus more cleaned and ready to for them to try to card into cute little tubes, called "rolags", a Scotch term. So I learned to clean alpaca: to flick locks to remove bits of dust and hay, to roll rolags...

Second cute kitty shot. Muffin's sitting on the completed
rolags in the box. Can't blame her, they're soft.

Wanting to have wool for the VBS children to handle and card and spin too, because it's easier to work than slippery alpaca hair is, I bought a pretty Shetland sheep fleece from a lovely girl in Ohio. Lothlorien's whole fleece arrived in a box, smelling pleasantly and not too strongly of sheepy lanolin, and imbued with her personality. Here she is.

Lothlorien, the creamy Shetland in back.

Spinning practice went apace. I turned back to alpaca not long after the first lesson, heaven knows why, probably because I had so much of it. Wool fibers have lots of scales, and they have waves and crimps that makes them stretchy, resilient, and fibers stick together and are easy to spin. Alpaca has fewer scales per fiber, often has little crimp or curl and isn't stretchy, and so is slippery-ish and a bit harder to spin. Whatever. It's what I really learned on and I love how deliciously sooooooft it is.

Here is a lock from Tuesday, the alpaca whose hair I've been spinning. See his cute stripe? He's ticked!

Christopher holds up two balls of spun alpaca. They're for a scarf for him at Christmas.

Here's one of the balls. See all the fluffs on the edges? That's before washing, too. It "blooms" after being washed and is even fluffier.

Here's the yarn, plied from two strands, or "singles". So much terminology. Just like sewing.

I washed the plied yarn. It bloomed, all right. Big, chunky, fluffy, soft like Muffin's kitten would be.

Well, our VBS coordinator gave me some wool that was even easier for children to handle, some curly, long-locked Blue-faced Leicester. Sheep breeds have funny names. Do you see any blue on the face of the sheep below? The skin under the white wool on his face does have a bluish tint.

Hexham Champion, 2008, from Middle Dukesfield, in England.

So I learned to comb out the 6"-10" wool, purchasing long wickedly sharp combs, true weapons capable of really injuring somebody, at the Bluegrass Sheep and Fiber Festival in May.

The boys wanted to learn, so they got spindles, too. They're still learning, a little, as the fit takes them.

Can you see the snowball, erm, fleeceball, rolling?

At Vacation Bible School the campers handled wool and alpaca, carded and combed and spun it and two children took big balls of wool home, with hopes to buy a drop spindle and continue learning. Everyone else got an alpaca puff to pet and scare their parents with, plus a length of what they had made. Here we are on the first day of camp, learning about wool and other animal fibers.

Next day we carded and used those wicked combs to actually comb some lovely locks into fluff ready for spinning on the morrow.

The children spin. First I'd demonstrate, then they'd try it and try it again.

Here's Jenni from Living with Jane. She helped children make jewelry, do glass mosaics, and felting.

The children actually span -- the obsolete past perfect tense of "spun"? -- quite a bit of yarn, not all of which was given away. We built a yarn winder from Tinkertoys to put it in a skein so it could be washed again to finish it.

The yarn winder. Spin the cross-shaped piece and it goes around.

Completed skein. The yarn thickness varies a lot. Children
just learning made it, and it has charm.

Well, we wanted to use it, and the boys and I were interested in how a loom works, so I read up in library books and online, and we built a rudimentary two-harness counterbalance loom, invented eons ago. Versions of this loom were used in India to make the incomparably fine muslins exported to Europe in the late 18th century, just in time for Classicism and the Regency. Versions called drawlooms made figured silks, and European weavers produced the luscious gold-and-silver thread enhanced, flower-bedecked brocades that we all sigh over.

Here's the Tinkertoy loom, with a red cotton warp on it, ready to be woven with the weft, made of the child-spun wool you saw above. That's a cardboard "stick" shuttle.

Yes, it works. Those two rectangular-shaped things decked with
strings (heddles) and hung from the top bar (castle) are called
harnesses.

At VBS the owner of Rosie's Ponies and Petting Zoo and I got to talking about the friendly llamas and sheep she had brought for the children to admire, pet, and feed, and she kindly offered the animal's fleeces when I asked if she might sell some, since she didn't use them. I got to thinking and in a spark of what I like to think is grace, it seemed that the fleeces could be turned into warm things for those in our area who need them. Thus was born the Big Fleece Project. It's still in infancy, but we hope to have felt and yarn from the fleeces to use.

One day recently the boys and I visited their farm, petted an affectionate (!) camel, a cozy-stand-next-to-you pony, admired llamas, petted rare Soay sheep, and packed up fleece after fleece that had been sheared. The back of the SUV was filled to the roof with fleeces stuffed into bags.

We brought them home, and that evening and the next morning, sorted them, skirted the sheep fleeces, a fancy term for taking off the edges, which are usually encrusted with matted, dungified, muddy, weedy bits. You see, a shearer cuts the fleece off sheep such that it's in once piece, ideally. He starts on the tummy one one hind leg and works round to the back and ends with the other hind leg. WikiHow explains.

Not all the fleeces were usable, but many were, and they were draped everywhere, drying out before being bagged.

Remember VBS? Here's the petting zoo day. Look at Mr. Llama and his buddy behind him, craning for affection and some treats. See if you can match his fleece in the piles below. I think I recognize some of the sheepy fleece, too.

Llama fleeces fall apart easily, so they're in bits: chocolate brown, cinnamon, latte, silver mist, cream, and agouti. They're my names. Must be hungry right now. Oh, so soft.

Llama, llama everywhere.

One Shetland fleece and lots of mystery short-staple (length of the wool) wool, a bit overpowering due to being damp. My mother was not terribly impressed on first contact with the project.

Sheep fleeces, entire, drying the only super-sunny, dry place I could think of,
the back of the truck.

"Black sheep, black sheep, have you any wool?" We ended with eleven bags full.

Soccer and fleece. They go together. Right?

In the last week or two I've almost completed spinning yarn for Christopher's scarf, and am starting to clean another Shetland fleece. In a post or two, how that's done. Oh, and the new loom, and not a Tinkertoy one.

Meantime, it'll be back to the Journal Journey!

Pulling a Jane Austen: Renovating a Dress, Again, for the Jane Austen Festival

Polly, Laura, Jenni and her daughter Autumn Jane,
Jenni's husband Carson, and me.

It has long been no secret that Jane Austen's funds could be sparse, and that she tweaked and retrimmed her caps and dresses and whatnots to renew them, season after season. Rare was the woman who didn't refresh at least some of her wardrobe in this fashion.

I've done the same with the standby white wrap-front dress, which first debuted in 2011, and wore it to the Jane Austen Festival in Louisville last weekend.

This year it received new sleeves, French-style Grecian sleeves with no seam, that button across the top to hold them closed, green silk ribbon at the hem, and a green silk sash with an antique buckle, a gift from dear friend Sabine, along with the buttons. I have to say, the renovation made the dress feel the best it has yet.

At the Festival on Primidi Thermidor, CCXXII

Jenni and her family, Laura, Polly and I attended the festival as the Merveilleuse and Incroyable contingent from Directoire France. Ah, what a day was Primidi Thermidor, the first day of the month named for summer heat! Most years Locust Grove shimmers under a hot, humid haze, and we thought to thumb our noses at the usually almost-unbearable heat by sporting muslins and French style: no sleeves or almost no sleeves, sandals, no neck-coverings, no outer coverings at all, really, unless you count my kid gloves, which I just could not keep on.

Being a bit barer than our compatriots from America and Britain, we did feel a little naughty. You can't help it when everyone else in costume is layered with handkerchiefs, chemisettes, even spencers, and multiple underpinnings. Excepting two young gentlemen who apparently had just walked out of the same pond Mr. Darcy did in that movie, hatless, jacketless and waistcoatless, but dry. Ye gods.

The ensemble in full.

We were much cooler. Perhaps that accounts for the stares. Stares? Well, yes. That's what happens when you channel the Pre-Punks and Neo-Greeks of the 18th century. Some got the visual joke, and bless them for it.

Julia, the Bohemian Belle, joins us on the promenade. Sandals are so much cooler than
silk stockings and shoes.

The joke was a little on us, actually. For the first time in five years, the weather was reasonably cool on Saturday, and I was glad of my wool wrap for awhile. It was only hot for the promenade? Why? The weather gods just wanted to annoy us.

Goddess-like, Laura channeling a Frenchwoman circa 1800. 

This year really was the best yet. Mr. Roberts and the captain and crew of the HMS Acasta outdid themselves portraying life in the Royal Navy; if you get a chance, read the letters received in a packet and opened that day with much excitement: they come from all over the world.

Dr. and Mrs. Roberts. He portrays a ship's doctor in the Royal Navy.

Jo Baker read from her novel Longbourn; Dr. John Mullen showed us the details and humor in Austen's novels that time and cultural shifts have hidden from us. There was excellent music and singing, archery, puppet shows, one of the best afternoon teas available in Kentucky

Polly and I. That's a Lydia Fast hat on my head. Great fun, isn't it?

and the only that I know of from vintage bone china, the annual style show, really wonderful shopping, and best of all, the Promenade. Four hundred and ninety-one of us dressed up and bested Bath for the world record; at least for now, we bear the honor of holding largest Regency Promenade ever. It was quite a pretty scene and one you're unlikely to see outside a costume film.

Readying for the promenade.

You can read a fuller write-up of the day on Jenni's blog, Living With Jane, and "The Pioneer Times" recorded the entire event in photos. My camera was pretty much stuck in a too-small reticule all afternoon, so I took few pictures, fewer of which came out. My thanks to those who did take photos.

Somewhere we dream.

Noah's First Poem

Birds chirp by the pond,

Water makes a quiet sound,

Grass waves in the wind,

The pond's sound.

Happy summertime, everyone.

Journal Journey into the Year 1811: La Belle Assemblée, May

This month's May La Belle Assemblée issue reports a month ahead, on summery June fashions in England.

Or summery to a degree. Our darling dear in her walking dress is wearing full-length, lined sleeves and a high ruff around her collar, along with a "Persian mantle" -- fashion chat for a long shawl -- over the pelisse. Little white muslin summer dress with elbow-length or short sleeves this is not. It bears reminding that during these years Europe was a little colder than normal, and we can imagine that an English June might be a little on the cool and damp side.

As we are entering the halcyon days, the time of the beach novel, the silly season, watch out, because there's a bit in here about spices used in a really unusual way. Tell me whether you believe it or not. 

Please don't forget to read the London report from Ackerman's, and those from Weimar and Paris.

• Sabine in Weimar: Journal des Luxus und der Moden
• Alessandra in Paris: Journal des Dames et des Modes
• Maggie, in London: Ackermann's
• 
  

The May issue contains two articles, from pages 268 to 269. Here are the articles, transcribed below, with a few comments and thoughts in a Notes section beneath the transcription.

FASHIONS FOR JUNE, 1811.

EXPLANATION OF THE PRINTS OF FASHION.

No. 1. -- WALKING DRESS.

A pelisse of pale pink sarsnet, lined with white, and ornamented with rich silk Brandenburg trimmings of correspondent pink, or pale brown; a high standing ruff round the throat; a Persian mantle of pale blue, or white, thrown over the dress. A basket hat of straw, ornamented with a demi-wreath of half blown roses. Shoes of blue kid; gloves of York tan.

No. 2. -- PARISIAN BALL DRESS.

A frock of white crape, ornamented with white satin in a leaf pattern, the bottom of the dress trimmed with pale French roses and a plaiting of green and rose-colored ribband mixed; short bell sleeves; Persian fringed sash; long white kid gloves; stockings much embroidered; the hair plaited, and twisted with a double row of pearls.

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS ON FASHION AND DRESS.

Nothing can be a stronger proof that there is a way of setting off native beauty with ease and innocence, which will charm without the danger of turned outward ornaments into folly and extravagance, than the present mode of dress affords; never were ladies so simply attired, so divested of all the unnecessary trappings of finery, as at the present day, -- and when did they appear half so lovely, so attractive? Fashion is always aiming at perfection, but never finds it, or never stops where it should, otherwise this would be the precise point, when ease and elegance, nature and propriety, are all combined to contribute to the grace and loveliness of the female person.

We scarcely ever remember that in any season white was so universally prevailing as at the present; it is not exclusively confined to the under garb, for we have observed several pelisses, mantles, cloaks, tippets, and spensers innumerable in white sarsnet, trimmed with broad Mechlin lace; and for the higher order of the promenade nothing can be more elegantly bewitching, though scarcely more attractive, than the pelisse of a dark but bright green sarsnet unconfined, and negligently flowng back so as to display a high dress vying with the lily in whiteness, and worn with a cottage bonnet oif white chip, tied with white. Small sarsnet cloaks sloped to a point in front, and trimmed with broad black lace, are very prevailing, as are lace cloaks of a like form, with a small tippel of sarsnet worn underneath. Short sarsnet pelisses trimmed with lace, or long pelisses of the most transparent muslin lined with pale pink or blue sarsnet, spencers in muslin lined are likewise very general. Crape mantlets reaching only to the point of hte elbow, bound and trimmed with satin ribband, with satin turban caps ornamented with a long white willow feather, are elegantly appropriate for the evening select promenade. Within these few days gipsy hats have appeared, they are extremely becoming to a light airy figure: the slouched riding hats, with pointed rims in front, are much worn, but becoming too general, they have among a few select fashionables given place to the gipsy bonnets with dome crowns; but nothing can supersede the cottage bonnet, either in straw, chip, or satin, ornamented with a white ostrich feather; so long and so universally prevailing have they been, that a foreigner might suppose them a national bonnet.

Morning dresses are universally of white plain or stripe jacconots, made in the pelisse form, buttoned from the throat to the feet, with small raised buttons; the sleeve is gathered and set in to the cuff, clasped at the wrist with small gold snaps; the collar is ornamented with crimped ribband, crossed so as to form a diamond in the middle, and at the edges vandykes.

Dinner, or home dresses, are mostly of soft mull or cambric muslins, made square and rather high on the bosom, the backs plain, and sleeves short, trimmed with lace or ribband, and worn with small crape or embroidered muslin aprons, fancifully relieved with ribband; figured gauze, Opera nets, and sarsnets, are still worn by many elegant people; cambrics printed in small chintz patterns, trimmed with green ribband, and worn with a muslin apron trimmed with the same, have a most fascinating appearance, particularly when worn in the country; if we had not observed it on a lady of undoubted fashion, we might not have been led to suppose so, yet how bewitching this modest, this apparently unassuming mode of dress is, every one will be more or less able to determine; such are the recreations often of fanciful elegance.

For full, or evening dresses, crapes blended with satin, white sarsnet, and white figured gauzes, are the most approved; coloured bodies of sarsnet or satin, are likewise a pleasing relief to a petticoat of white crape or India muslin: the bosoms of the dresses are worn low and square, trimmed with broad Mechlin lace, set on rather full, or large white beads; the sleeves are made short, terminated with satin of a correspondent colour with the dress, cut bias, and laid in an easy fold; the bands are of the same, confined to the waist by a pin where least observed. Black and white lace dresses are too elegantly appropriated to have suffered any diminution of favour; lace or sarsnet tippets are still a requisite appendage to full dress. The head-dress is made flat to the head in the long Grecian form, with small raised fronts, and one or two ostrich feathers; beads are still a prevailing ornament placed much over the temples, and tassels suspended from one side; lace handkerchiefs are worn placed at the back of the head, and merely large enough to pin at the ear. Artificial flowers belong to a second order of dress, from whence too they are likely soon to be banished, not bearing the contrast of nature; flowers of stamped or camped satin and lace are now a more approved ornament for hats or caps. Feathers in every rank of dress are most esteemed by fashionable people. Crimped satin and ribbands are at present the rage, but nevertheless considered as less genteel than those of plain satin or sarsnet. Shot silks, except pale colours shot with white, have fallen quite into disrepute. Small trains are worn except for dancing. Short sleeves are universal. The waists maintain their length behind, but are something shorter in front. Some young ladies have appeared with their shoulders absolutely bared; if this be intended to charm, we would ask them if they are sensible of how much greater attraction they lose sight when they depart from that modesty (a breach of which no fashion or custom can sanction) which alone gives lustre to beauty in women; it is of itself so beautiful that it has a charm to hearts insensible of all others; an innocent modesty, a native simplicity of look, eclipses all the glaring splendours of art or dress; but how can such a look coincide with such a dress? In a word, it is a wantonness scarcely to be tolerated in an Indian slave market, much less in a Christian woman. Such exposures remind us of cheap fruit stripped of their husks, or rinds, in order to prove an incitement to purchasers.

The hair is now worn strained back from the side of the face, twisted behind, and brought round the head on one side and confined in full round curls, the front hair is curled in thick flat curls. Ornamental combs are not much worn; pearl wreaths are considered as remarkably elegant; many ladies have nothing on their heads.

In jewellery but little variation is observable at this season, rustic ornaments as usual prevail; necklaces and crosses of coral, amber, Indian spices, &c., worn long, prevail; pearls, diamonds, &c., in necklaces or any fancy devices, innumerable.

The prevailing colours for the season are yellow, deep green, blue, pink, lilac, and amber.

Notes

Ball dress. The ball dress in this month's plate, spelled "Parisien" in the French manner on the plate itself but in English in the text, has a dramatically low-cut vee back. The back neckline appears to nearly reach the back waist, and if it doesn't, really it still would appear to, courtesy the satin trim. We don't know for sure, of course, but it would not be surprising at all if the satin leaf shapes were simply cut in pairs out of a single layer of satin, and the edges perhaps painted with gum arabic to retard fraying, and tacked to the dress at the join between the two leaves. Can you imagine the leaves fluttering, the satin glimmering in candlelight, with every move of the dress? It's the epitome of summery dress, and it would be stunning too in a dress of light green, with darker Regency green leaves, blush or yellow roses and a matching sash. I do not know if the "Persian fringed sash" is Persian because of the fringe, Persian because anything Eastern is hot in 1811, or because the sash is of silk Persian, a light silk often used for linings. 

Ball headdress.

Ball headdress. The double row of pearls twisted on at the front hairline echoes the bumps created by the braided hair. What the text does not say is that the back hair is not only braided in multiple braids, one following the curve of the chignon, and several others crossing over the chignon, but that there are curled puffs added above the comb that holds the chignon and braids in place. The puffs could be the curled ends of the hair and braids pinned into puffs, but could also be achieved with little puffs of false hair pinned into place. Some of the braids could be false as well. The short front hair is allowed to curl in tiny, short curls, and the hair at the neck ditto. The comb is metal, perhaps pinchbeck or vermeil, and topped, typically, with pearls to match the pearls worn in the hair. The hair pearls were probably false glass pearls...sea pearls were incredibly expensive, and the comb pearls as well. This is an effective and elegant headdress, one of the prettier I've seen in 1811. It is funny that the general observations sections claims that decorative combs are not much worn, when the fashion plate is showing one. Beware of depending solely on either text or image when doing your research.

Basket hat. I suppose the basket moniker is due to the plaited openings in the side of what looks like a capote-style hat with a turned-up brim. To be perfectly honest with you, it really does look like the poor thing is wearing a basket, and I cannot pretend to like it. A simpler hat in felted wool would have been a better fit with the military trimming, to my mind, anyhow.

Beads. Still a thing. Now it's beads at the temples, strung like a diadem.

Bell sleeves.

Bell sleeves. If you look closely, these are not the boufy-poufy, stand-up-at-the-top-of-the-armscye sleeves of the later Regency, but sleeves that rise just a little at the shoulder (look at the lady's right arm -- there is some stiffness at the seam), but then bell out and fold under so the cuff, and there must be a cuff to hold that fold, is hidden.

Brandenburg trimmings. These are military-style trimmings, made in what is probably a silk cord, trimmed with silk-covered beads. Note that they could be brown or pink. The pink would have blended into the dress and looked rather quieter. Also note the belt, with pendant cords or ribbons, with beads dangling. Here are more echoes of the vandyking and pointed-edged draperies we have seen in earlier months.

Advertisement in Ackermann's for cambric.

Cambric. A fabric the was originally made of linen, but later made in cotton as well. Normally, but not always, woven in a plain (tabby) weave. Could be woven very tightly and of very fine threads. The Tradesman: Or Commercial Magazine, Volume 8, p. 187 says that fine cambric is used to make artificial flowers, and the more "imperceptible" the weave, the better the result mimics nature. In sales advertisements, cambric is often classed with lawn, which we know as another fine woven, but rather limp, fabric. It is also advertised along with lace. Since lace was expensive, especially before the advent of reams of manufactured lace, the fact that cambric was sold in the same shop and classed with it, puts good cambric in the category of a finer fabric. See for instance The Repository of Arts, Literature, Fashions, Manufactures..., (Ackermann's) Volume 5, 1818,  p. 314. (See also jacconots/jaconet, below.)

Colors. For this season we see summer colors: "colours for the season are yellow, deep green, blue, pink, lilac, and amber". However, if you plan to create a evening dress for spring 1811 -- what are the chances? -- and wish to use shot silk, it had better be white shot with a color.

Gold snaps. In reference to the closure on the cuffs of a morning dress. "(T)he sleeve is gathered and set in to the cuff, clasped at the wrist with small gold snaps". Snap closures, so far as I know, were invented early in the 20th century. I have never seen an extant dress with a closure of any sort of snap-like function. A mystery awaiting a solution!

Home dresses. "(C)ambrics printed in small chintz patterns, trimmed with green ribband, and worn with a muslin aprin trimmed with the same". Here is an example of a dress made in the small sprigged patterns we often associate with the Regency. However, what we moderns don't always conjure up is the addition of a muslin apron as an accessory. Neither did the author, who commented that if he hadn't seen a reliably fashionable lady wearing such an "unassuming" ensemble -- read normally worn for work and labor -- he wouldn't have thought it fashionable. Simple muslin aprons worn with little printed dresses were workaday fashion but could be considered chic when worn as country dress. We might have guessed as much, but it's good to see it in print.

Indian spice necklace. Yes, it's true, they existed. I take this extended quotation from The Gentleman's Magazine, 1802, p. 916, in an article titled "The Dress of the Ladies Medicinally Considered". It is the only other article, by the way, that I can locate which mentions this sort of necklace, though they seem to have had a rather long run for a fad, since they're mentioned in 1811.

But yet, Mr. Urban, the dear creatures do sometimes adopt such whims as one cannot help criticizing on a little; and a fashion has just come to my knowledge, which seems singular enough to merit a place in your miscellaneous annals of the times. This, Sir, is a species of NECKLACE made of common black pepper, or, as it is called in the language of the kitchen--all-spice. I really don't joke--you may see them in every shop; the all-spice is first boiled, then strung with beads alternately, and when cold the all-spice becomes hard as before--and necklaces of this composition at present adorn the fair necks, and are pendant from the fair bosoms, of our fair ladies.

Now, in the name of wonder, Mr. Urban, who invented this? or why, out of all the substances in the creation, animal, vegetable, or mineral, should all-spice be chosen for a purpose hiterto executed by diamonds, by pearls, and by artificial beads of a thousand beautiful hues? I have in vain questioned all the females of my acquaintance as to the origin and uses of this West Indian produce, taken from our broths and our soups to exalt female beauty; but I can get no answer, no rational account, why all-spice is preferred, or why grey pease would not have been full as becoming, and more patriotic as growing in our own lands...."

Why boil the berries? I suspect to allow a needle or awl to be pushed through to make the stringing hole. Would the berries have smelled nicely? Surely the women questioned would have told their listener if that were the case. It's a mystery and I am tempted to try out the experiment, and boil some of my allspice berries, and string them with some beads.

Jacconots (jaconet). A kind of muslin, relatively heavy compared to light fabrics like lawn. The Encyclopaedia Perthensis (1816), p. 160, categorizes it this way:

However, note that the encyclopedia ranks cambrics as heavier than lawn...while another source classes it with lawn. I suspect that there are several grades of the cambrics, and probably of jaconet, too.

Necklaces. Coral and amber are considered summery and "rustic". Interesting. So are "Indian spices". This makes me wonder if necklaces were strung with nutmegs? Still, I cannot help but wonder if I have misread or misunderstood the text...but no, it's true. See "Indian spice necklace". It's fascinating. By the way, the spice used is apparently from the Caribbean, the West Indies.

Persian mantle. What makes the mantle Persian? Methinks it's probably just to decorate the idea of the shawl, and no more, but the heavy gold fringe, which appears to be composed of gold-colored beads, does have an Eastern feel. Note that the beads play off the beads on the pelisse trim. The entire outfit is closely coordinated.

Tippets. Still in fashion...

Waistline. For evening dresses, waistlines are somewhat higher in front than in back. What a change from some years before, when the front was lower than the back. It's a fallacy to assume that the high waistline was at the same height all around. It makes putting on a sash rather a trick.

White. The author's chatter about how prevalent the color white is in 1811 strikes me as a little silly, since white had been so common a color for dress for the last thirty years, from when the Chemise a la Reine made its entrance before the French Revolution. However, if you choose not to skip the section after the first phrase, you realize that the author is focusing on white outerwear...you know, shawls and spencers and so on. Yes, this is different, for for the last age or so, and I am exaggerating, women had been wearing little white dresses with bright Eastern or faux-Eastern shawls, or contrasting spencers in silk or cotton or wool or lace, with colored boas and so on. Now the outerwear is white too. 

More than that, the layering effects we have seen in drapery this year are carried into peekaboo color effects, in which thin white fabrics on top allow colored linings to show. We've seen this is dresses, now it's popular in pelisses and spencers, too. This is a fashion sandbox in which costumers and reenactors haven't played much, and I wish they would try it out as a variation.