1790s Fashion: A Transition from The Enlightenment to Regency, Part 2

Here is the second part of an examination of 1790s fashion through an unscientific sampling of paintings, prints, and fashion plates.  You can read Part 1 here.

As always, please click on images to open a larger version.

An Interlude: Watching the Drawstring Neckline

Last time we ended roundabout 1795, when the arts and fashion seriously turned their attention to all things classical. Yet let's consider the takeover of the gathered drawstring neckline some more.

First of all, it's good to know that drawstrings had been used on gown necklines before this time. While bodices were tight-fitting during most of the eighteenth century, so that they stretched smoothly over the stays beneath, fit could be achieved with drawstrings as well as with pins. Here's an example from a gorgeous 1770s polonaise dress on for sale at the Antique and Vintage Dress Gallery.

In the photo above, the bodice hasn't been fitted to the person...you can see in the other half of the bodice how the fabric straightened out when it was pulled a little to fit over the torso.

Here's another photo of the right side, which has been drawn up a little. Look very carefully about half an inch below the edge of the silk fabric, and you can see stitching. That marks the outer edge of the channel through which the drawstring is run.

One last picture. In this one we see the bodice interior. As with gowns of the day it's lined. A channel the drawstring was simply created by running a row of stitching parallel to and a little below the neckline edge, and the drawstring threaded through: no need for a separate casing. Again, if you look extremely carefully, you can see the outline of the drawstring channel.

Now we have that straight. Anyhow, in the last post we saw the emergence of dresses with obvious neckline gathering, achieved with drawstrings. A few detail shots of paintings we have seen:

The 1780s...chemise dresses with gathered necklines, and chemises or chemisettes with drawstrings appear to show above round gowns.

The Marquise de Pezay's chemise or habit shirt stands out a little on its drawstring so that you can see a portion of the inside as well as the outside. The garment is really heavily gathered, so that would give it some body, but it also appears a bit opaque, so it's not terribly gauzy.

By contrast the Marquise de Rouge is wearing a chemise or habit shirt that is less gathered and sheerer: you can see the casing through which the gathering string is drawn right through the exterior of the garment. I cannot find a really high-resolution version of the picture, but wonder if her dress itself has a gathered neckline, too: the stripes on the bodice do not run vertically, and there is a little bouf right at the center neckline, almost as if there were strings there.

In the early 1790s one of the Falkland sisters (on the left) wears a gathered drawstring chemise dress, with a small frill at the edge.

In Spain, a classical take on the chemise dress.

Once again, I suffer for the lack of a really high-res photo, but seem to see the following:

• The dress gathering runs far out to the shoulders: look to the right of the red bow (marked in image above with second yellow line) and you see gathering. Maria Teresa's hair is covering the left dress strap, so you cannot see that side. The chemise dress patterns in Norah Waugh's Cut of Women's Clothes and in the Everyday Dress of Rural America 1783-1800 do not gather all the way around the neckline. Instead, they gather across the front and then stop at the straps that go over the shoulder.
• What appears to be a double frill (marked with the top yellow line in the image above) on the dress may be the actual chemise worn under the dress, and then the dress atop. Showing both would have been a neat decorative touch.

In 1795, the famous Madame Seriziat and her late chemise dress, with the neckline apparently gathered on a drawstring, this time all the way up to shoulder top, at least. It turns out that the dress has a collar and the fashion fabric is mounted to a lining. Still, there is charted draft of a "white cotton gown" from the Williamsburg collection that shows the drawstring treatment. See http://www.19thus.com/WomensClothing/WmburgGown_c_1800.html.

In the early 1790s, round gowns frequently started to feature gathered necklines on drawstrings, too. Round gowns had been around for years, and were so called because the skirts didn't open in front to reveal the petticoat, and the bodice closed in front, requiring no stomacher. The bodices on earlier round gowns didn't show much gathering, but sat close against the stays.

Here are two ladies wearing examples of the gathered style, part of a group in a Cruikshank caricature of 1795. The pictures are fun, but the topic risque, so be forwarned if you visit the original on Wikimedia Commons.

These were all dresses. However, sometimes robes worn above dresses started to feature drawstring gathered necklines too. A Journal des Dames fashion plate from 1792 shows a very pretty brown robe over a brown and white spotted dress, with pink trim. The robe has a gathered drawstring neckline!  I think this ensemble elegant and really suited for for a costume today. (Image courtesy Costumer's Manifesto.)

Meg Andrews, a well-known textiles dealer, has such a robe on her site (see http://www.meg-andrews.com/item-details/Printed-Open-Robe/6056), and they turn up every so often in collections.

It is harder to find clear examples of either the gathered neckline robes or gathered neckline round gowns in paintings. In the fashion plates and paintings available on the web, light-colored muslin dresses predominate over round gowns. Fashion plates showed high fashion, and the light muslins were highest fashion. Paintings usually showed sitters at their best, too, and again, it appears as if the "little white dress" was most frequently selected as the dress to be seen in. Of course, this is supposition on my part. We in the 21st century may have created a false representation if we preferred to upload pictures of women in white dresses. Not having access to a full catalog of paintings, I do not know for sure.

What is apparent, is that from the mid 1790s onward, the gathered neckline was to predominate over the tightly fitted bodice front, whatever the color or style of dress.

Back to the 1790s

In the last post we stopped in 1795 with a print that poked gentle fun at all things classical. In that print, everyone is quite severely dressed...no ruffles or frills there. Now, let's move forward, looking towards the end of the century.

Oops, I forgot this one from 1794. Here is Princess Frederika (image from Costumer's Manifesto), circa 1794.

She, like Madame Seriziat, is wearing a very plain chemise dress, decorated at hem probably with embroidery and maybe a ribbon applied, since it's a different color than the main dress fabric. She pulls her dress up to show the slightly shorter petticoat, which is also barely trimmed.

In fashion plates, frills and lace still appeared, although not in quite the profusion they had earlier in the decade. For example, in this 1795 Gallery of Fashion print, if you look carefully, you see a small frill on the neckline of her dress. If you visit Cathy Decker's Gallery of Fashion magazine pages, and look year by year, you will see a slow reduction in frilliness as the years go by.

Spotted muslins were fashionable along with the plain white muslins. They are hard to find in exant garments, by the way. That any should survive is amazing, given how light and airy -- and tearable -- the fabric was. You can see two of them in a Cora Ginsburg gallery's 2006 auction catalog, at http://www.coraginsburg.com/catalogues/2006/cat2006pg16&17.htm. For half and full dress, wilk satin was also popular among the upper crust...the fine cottons hadn't quite replaced silks.

You can see spotted muslin in the Heideloff plate, also from 1795, below; image courtesy Cathy Decker's site. As in the plate above, the neckline is not round, but vee-shaped. This plate features figures wearing the very popular open robes above either round gowns, chemise dresses, wrap-front (with the vee-necklines) dresses, or petticoats, with kerchiefs tucked into the robe. The terms round gown, chemise, robe and petticoat, so long used in the 18th century, continued to be used in the fashion press, and referred to the same articles, even though their designs had morphed so much.

Note that fur boas, known as tippets, could replace the long narrow garments that went by the name of cloak in the fashion press, but overall, the idea was to have something long hanging about your neck. Once again, those beads and tall feathers swaying.

Here is a favorite portrait from Wikimedia Commons, this one of the Ryberg family, in 1796. If that is Mrs. Ryberg, I think she must have been a lovely person; she looks, as they might have said, most amiable. Her dress is impeccable.

The dress details are instructive:

Her dress has dispensed with frills and applied decoration but is nevertheless en vogue:

• She is wearing a chemise dress, tied with a very high waistline by a narrow reddish bow that coordinates with her shawl. The bow is simple, not a rosette; I cannot tell for sure but the dress may not have a drawstring at the waist: many did not.
• The dress is entirely plain so far as the viewer knows, and quite sheer.
• The petticoat beneath may be silk, for it has a sheen. It may have a band at the bottom. It was fashionable to hold up your dress to show a little of it; paintings and fashion plates make this movement all the time.
• She is carrying a lovely oblong shawl, with a fancy tied fringe and pretty border, as well as a parasol with a long handle. It looks pinkish and I wonder if it would coordinate or not.
• Her shoes are in a rich yellow, fashionably pointed and with the barest heel. The shoes coordinate with the yellows in the shawl.
• She does not wear powder and her hair is more simply coiffed and narrower than earlier in the decade.

Here is Queen Louise of Prussia, also in 1796 (Luise von Mecklenburg-Strelitz). The queen had many portraits made over the years, and the ones on Wikimedia Commons (see link above) are all heavily classical in style, as was her tomb, by the way. In this image, she even is depicted with a Sphinx in the background. Her dress is a real find because of the construction details:

The young lady is wearing an extreme example of Classical dress. The keys, at least as I see them, to it are:

• the metal hooks that close the front of the bodice to the shoulders. This appears then to be a bib-front dress, meaning that the bodice front is not attached to the side panels and must be pinned in place. It's the first I have seen for this year, and I almost wonder about the date the work is attributed to.
• The waistband so high up, with heavily gathered skirt beneath. The way the bib front is bloused it's hard to tell, but my guess is that the skirt is apron front style, meaning that it is not connected to the bodice. This means that the bodice front is only connected at part of the sides, and the skirt is split at the side seams. The front skirt panel's waistband would end in long ties. The bodice would be pinned in place, then the skirt front panel brought up and the ends be tied in the back. Skirts were still quite full in 1796: as the years went by they became skimpier and flatter in front.
• There is no sash...sashes begin to drop out of fashion by century's end.
• The sleeves end in trumpet shapes, longer in back than in front, very Greek statue-ish and not long in fashion.
• She still has the long locks of the 1790s, unpowdered, not the updos prevalent around 1800.

Oh, by the way, she liked fashion. Here are scribblings said to have been done in 1795...and they include a sketch of a lady wearing a zone-front dress, in stripes, along with ladies wearing the wide poufy coiffures that so soon would become history.

How about some fashion plates for 1796? Here is one from the German-language Journal für Fabrik, Manufaktur, Handlung und Mode. As with Queen Louise's dress, this chemise dress (or petticoat and kerchief combination) lacks any heavy decoration at the neckline. Over it is worn a cross between the open robe and a coat. The dress is still very full in front, but embroidered and van dyked at bottom. Note the pretty doubled strand of beads at the woman's neckline.

Another 1796 Heideloff fashion plate. There is the spotted muslin, a few frills, the long cloak dangling, the very high waist and very full skirt and the fashionable pose, negligently pulling up one's skirt with a hand.

This year in caricatures is helpful, too. Here is one by James Gillray. I hesitated to show it because it's a bit off-color, but the coiffures and the evening dress, while exaggerated, show very clearly the changes occurring in fashion.

The round-figured lady on the left, the Duchess of Buckinghamshire, is wearing a round gown and some sort of overdress, I suppose, the neckline is frilled or ruched with what is likely lace: lace in full dress (evening dress) remained fashionable for many women. The rather undressed lady next to her wears -- or doesn't -- the height of fashion, an extremely classical gown,  the chemise dress morphed, with split short sleeves closed with golden jewelry and a turban. No apparent gathering at neckline, as seen in one of the fashion plates for the same year, above. No modest neckerchief for the night hours, either. The lady in green's dress has frills at neckline. Everyone sports the tall feathers so popular in the middle of the decade.

From 1797 through 1800, changes in dress sihouette had slowed just a bit, according to fashion plates I have seen. Dresses remained full, if not quite as full as in 1796, spotted muslins and plain muslins still appeared, as did robes. Decoration tended more and more to embroidery or applied ribbon...the flat was more prominent than the 3-D. 

Here, from the Journal des Dames et des Modes (on Cathy Decker's site), a typical example from 1797. She wears a red kerchief over her shoulders and it appears to be crossed at the waist and tied in back, a common look, but in this case, made to attract attention, not for modesty. Note the wild hat. There was a good bit of experimentation in hats.

A few new types of dress appeared, such as the half robe or tunic, worn above the basic dress, as seen here in a plate from Journal des Luxus und der Moden (on Cathy Decker's site):

What changed more were design patterns, and accessories, and hair. The emphasis fell fully in the Classical mode. Some magazines touted wearing sandals, which seems rather silly in a northern European or British climate, and dress details included obviously Greek designs, from Greek keys to acanthus. Some hats look like versions of Greek helmets. And the hair? Away the loving long powdered locks and frizz, welcome the short or the messy, natural updo, that looked to made with very little in the way of hairpieces and none in the way of powder. All of this can be seen in a typical example, again from Journal des Dames et des Modes, on Cathy Decker's site:

Many plates and paintings show dresses with significant trains. It's no wonder so many images include women holding their skirts up around their legs, which to my eye looks bulky and silly: can you imagine walking in the muck with a train made of muslin? Not that the woman in the dark round gown with chemise dress-like sleeves below seems to have cared: she was in mourning.

The above from The Lady's Magazine, December 1797 (Cathy Decker's site). Quite a narrow dress.

What did paintings and prints show from these last three years? Pretty much what the fashion plates did, but less fussy in the details. Perhaps they didn't show well in paintings, perhaps Grecian simplicity was taken further by artists than by designers of dresses. Portraits are quite public, really, and the sitters want to show themselves with their best feet forward. Perhaps the sitter wants to let the viewer know that they support Egalite and Fraternite in France. Perhaps they want to save their necks. Perhaps they want to let viewers know that they are the very type of the solid American citizen. Perhaps they have hired an artist who is enamoured of the Classical or the republican. Whatever the reason, it's smart to look at more than one medium when trying to get some sense for what was fashionable and worn.

Here is Constance Pipelet, by Jean-Baptiste François Desoria. Posed against an almost Rennaissance landscape and a pure plain blue sky, she sits dressed so severely. Not a touch of anything frilly or girlish; athletic, healthy.

A similar simple treatment for Gabrielle Josephine du Pont. A close examination reveals pretty teardrop earrings and perhaps some whitework embroidery on her sleeves, and a silk tie without color, narrow by this point, on her dress.

Not all dresses were in white, and not all references were to classical Greece. Here is Madame Regnaud de Saint-Jean d'Angely, painted by Francois Gerard. Exhibited at the 1799 Paris Salon, Wikipedia writes of it "Ce portrait un des plus célèbres portraits français, révèle un visage de madone florentine, avec un mélange de douceur et de sensualité qui était la marque de séduction de M^me Regnaud, remarquable par la pureté classique de ses traits" According to my failing memory for French this translates loosely as "this portrait, one of the most celebrated of French portraits, reveals a face like a Florentine Madonna, a mix of sweetness and sensuality which was the mark of seduction of Madame Regnaud, remarkable for the classical purity of her features." Indeed, the dress, as much as the background, does recall some Renaissance treatments...a fashion that we would see occurring more frequently as the Regency progressed, and especially in England.

Just so that we do not forget that not everyone followed the new modes:

From the Lady's Magazine, a plate entitled "The Admonition". The figure to the left I take to be Mama: she's in a round gown with mob cap and apron and early 1790s kerchief, and one daughter, to the right, is also in a dark-colored round gown and kerchief combination, but with her hair in the closer-to-the-head style . The other daughter? The new style pretty much all the way. Different styles co-existed, depending on one's age, station, and proclivities.

And from Isaac Criukshank, two details from a 1799 caricature. In the first, we see "sandal"-wearing with a what might still have been called a round gown, although it was plain as any Grecian-chemise dress. Note the white petticoat!

In the second, what looks like cross-over gown worn with lace at the neck, and purple petticoat beneath. You have to look closely at the hem of the dress, which climbs at one side. The overall effect is conservative, more like something out of the earlier part of the decade.

Here ends this look at 1790s women's fashion. It hasn't covered everything, not by a long shot, and I could have kept on editing the text for a week of evenings. Had I world enough and time, as they say, I would have visited half the museums in the U.S. and Europe, collected photos of every painting, print and plate I could get, and then categorized the contents of each, from head to toe, creating a massive spreadsheet detailing the appearance, change, and disappearance of elements in dress. Alas, not world enough, or time. So scattershot must do. Any comments or corrections appreciated!

In the coming weeks and months, I finish the bodiced petticoat tutorial, and move on to my 1794-95 ensemble, which is evolving not only from the above, but also from an examination of photos and drafts of extant garments, and, I hope, some advice from true professionals in reconstructing them.

Interested in Reading More?

See all my 1790s posts, plus experiments in costuming in 1790s: Costumes.  You'll find a lot of research, such as analysis of extant clothing, portraits, portrait miniatures, fashion magazine texts and plates, even translations from the German Luxus und der Moden, and of course secondary sources, that I've done in efforts to document each part of the costumes made.

A Ditty in Search of a Tune

Friday late morning found the boys and I at Ashland Estate. It was sunny outside, and this winter sunshine has been rare, so we roamed for as long as we could stay warm, picking up sticks, spotting birds, checking for signs of growth among the dark clods and browned grass, and looking for rabbit and chipmunk holes.

And of course, ringing the ship's bell. It used to be that I would lift the twins up, one at a time, so they could knock on it and produce a hollow, musical sound.  This visit had its shock, for Noah climbed atop the memorial plaque that says that this bell was once aboard the USS Ashland, and was made a gift to the Henry Clay estate, reached up inside the bell, and pulled the clapper to the edge. A similar musical sound, but louder. The noise wasn't the shock, it was the fact that he could actually reach the bell and move that heavy clapper. [Small noise of motherly malencholy and pride mixed together.]

Photo: USS Ashland, circa 1950s. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons

The peonies in the big peony garden on the other side of the estate are showing rich red points above the soil; a gardener was tending them. Daffodils are poking up in the formal garden behind the hedges, and the chickadees -- or birds that sound like them -- are out, as are the red-headed woodpeckers, and flocks of robins. They didn't fear us much, so we watched them turn over pine needles and last year's leaves, looking for bugs that have woken up.

Perhaps it was the blue, blue sky overhead, perhaps it was ringing the bell, which has such a pretty tone, that prompted me to make up a ditty as we wandered around. Anyhow, every time I ended it, the boys wanted it again, and I'd try to remember what I'd said and the tune. It was never the same, and none of us minded, but by the time we reached home again it had settled into the below, sung to a sort of sea-sounding jig, which, unlike the words, didn't stuck with me. No surprise, since I cannot read or write musical notes. A pity. So here's the ditty, and it really needs a tune. Anyone?

Here we go a-sailing
Come, boys, with me!
Blue-water sailing,
White waves a-tailing,
Splish-splash,
Splish-splash!
Over the deep blue sea.

Spring's coming, when you can make up ditties easily. Winter is for thinking and admiring the landscape. Spring is for singing.

Whoops! Not Done Yet...

Upsy-daisy, the 1780s-1790s post wasn't supposed to go up, because it wasn't finished.  I am still working on it and will repost it when it's done.

1790s Fashion: A Transition from the Enlightenment to Regency, Part 1

Have you ever looked at a fashion history book -- the kind with lots of illustrations of the changing silhouettes -- and wondered why on earth the eighteenth century dandy and his furbelow-decked lady suddenly would drop their silken finery for clinging muslins and tight, shrunken suits?

Photo: Typical 1780s chemise ensemble. Auguste Wilhelmine Maria of Hessen-Darmstadt and children. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Much has been written, and was even at that period, about how 1790s fashion reflected the decade's social turbulence by shifting more rapidly than at any recorded time previous. The French revolution had quite an effect on what women wore, of course, as did ever-increasing international trade with India and the Far East, import bans and taxes. So did the passion for Classicism so apparent in all of the arts, and Enlightenment philosophy and its result, and what one article (Wikipedia) calls the "triumph of informality".

Still, when I pick up a random fashion history book, more than likely the author has chosen to slice and dice this period into sharply delineated sections. Poor 1790s: so often split up, your history divided by politics or ethos! Fashion's short-shrift decade.

Photo: A Regency ensemble, 1798. Louise von Preussen. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

(Oh yes, I hear you, those of you who love Nancy Bradfield's Costume in Detail: Women's Dress 1730-1930. She keeps the decade whole, and I love her too, relying on her superb drawings perhaps more than those of any other book. However, perhaps because she wasn't able to examine extant garments of these types, her book doesn't feature two garment styles that were important in marking the transition from Enlightenment to Regency. Norah Waugh's The Cut of Women's Clothes does to some degree too, but many of us find that book exceedingly expensive, and interlibrary loan isn't available to all of us Finally, there is a terrific costume exhibit at the Kent State University Museum, curated by Anne Bissonnette, titled "The Age of Nudity", that ran in 2006-2007. The exhibit website is still up, the text concise and authoritative, and the images marvelous, but such a brief view, and no book produced! Alas.)

Let's do something different this time.

In this post, I've collected an unscientific, convenience sampling of paintings and engravings and fashion plates from Wikimedia Commons, from the 1780s through about 1800. As you scan them, you will see something fascinating. The 1780s chemise dress will morph into the Regency gown, the 1780s open robe and redingote styles will open up and travel towards the back of the body until the resulting overgarment feels more like a sort of long jacket or long vest than a gown. To keep things moving along, I have focused mostly on these garments rather than on the wider breadth of styles in that were in favor, so that we can watch them grow and change, much as we watch caterpillars morph into butterflies.

By the way, all this examination relates to a project. I have five months to complete an ensemble for the Jane Austen Festival in Louisville, and have chosen to dress for the years 1795-1797.

Given that the months are slipping by fast, I've forgone the much of the research I usually do, so sad to say, I haven't read literature of the period or looked for period magazine texts or other sources for help.

As always, please click on the images to see larger versions. I've also included links to the Wikimedia Commons originals, some of which are very large files with good detail.

Here We Go...

Here is a portrait of Princess Marie Josephine Louise of Savoy, called "Madame", the future wife of Louis XVIII of France. Her painter, Élisabeth-Louise Vigée-Le Brun, made this painting in 1782.

Le Brun has painted Madame in a chemise dress of the time, an informal style worn for "undress" occasions. As Norah Waugh has it, the style was popularized by stylemaker Marie Antoinette, and was dubbed the chemise a la reine, after a portrait by Vigee le Brun that appeared at the 1783 Paris Salon (Waugh, p. 73).

I wonder whether the style was already on the rise, since other women wear versions of it in paintings of slightly earlier date -- like the portrait above. After all, children had been wearing chemise dresses for some years (look at the little child in the top photo and Miss Willoughby, at right, 1781-1783, by George Romney), and fashionable people had been tiring of heavy or trim-encrusted, stiff-bodiced formal dress that had proclaimed wealth and status for centuries. Those of you who have studied the philosophy and social history of this period, do you have details or pointers to add?

This dress is likely of muslin. The collar is trimmed with lace, which I imagine may be whipped on right to the edge of the muslin so that the lace forms a smooth extension of the collar edge.  Like so many of these dresses,  drawstrings likely are used to close it at neck and waist, and more drawstrings and ribbons to create the puffs on the arms.

Also like so many chemise dresses, the waist -- at natural level -- is defined by a silk sash. Often you see them in blue or pink, sometimes in green. Yet in the photo at the top of this post, Auguste Wilhelmine Maria of Hessen-Darmstadt is wearing not a silk sash, but a shaped flat belt.

Yes, let's have a look at a detail from the top photo again. That belt -- isn't it handsome? It appears to be embroidered, with a "buckle" being perhaps a portrait. It is hard to see and I do not have a larger version of this painting to hand.

This painting also makes clear that not all chemise dresses were as loose as those worn a little later. This dress is loose only at the bust, while the lower section of the bodice is quite shaped, and the bodice is long. The dress has a sheen too, which makes me wonder it it might be made of a soft silk, perhaps a gauze?

Let's move on to another example or two.

Here's a painting of Elizabeth Foster, by Joshua Reynolds. Ms. Foster is quite fluffed out, no? Have a look at her dress. Here the chemise collar is worn high up, and the waistline is a little raised, courtesy that very wide, colorful sash, and see the ribbons that tie around her sleeves? They're pink and do not match the sash.

One last example. This is Sarah Villiers, Viscountess of Jersey, by Ozias Humphrey, and painted in 1786. In this case, the chemise dress has a wide falling collar that spreads out over the shoulders, and a far narrower sash. Look at her sleeves: how long they are! Regency sleeves would often do this: be very long and pushed back to wrinkle up on the lower arm. Note how she wears her bracelet: over the sleeve.

As you can see, just this limited sampling of dresses shows the variety that the chemise dress could take.

Now, let's have a look at a few other examples of late 1780s dress, and look for items that would carry on into the next decade.

Here is a 1780s sample, a portrait of Frederika Sophia Wilhelmina of Prussia, painted by Tischbein in 1789. While the princess wears her gown long-waisted, as had been popular for so very long, the fabric appears a little lighter than earlier in the century, and it is closed down the front rather than open with a stomacher. These round gowns had grown in favor...and from this point on, women's dresses would generally be closed up front rather than pinned or laced partially open, revealing garments or decor beneath.

The princess is also wearing a fichu. Long worn for modesty, cleanliness and style, fichus in the 1780s began to bouf out a little, and by the 1790s would get positively pigeon-breasted. The princess' fichu is a little bouffy, and fortells the later frontward expansion. 

And her hair? Positively puffy, as it had been most of the decade. Costumers these days call it hedgehog hair. Much of it is wig, and it's still tinted gray with powder...you will see more of this styling in the 1790s, and it will become even less styled, before moving to a more natural look.

Here is another portrait, from 1787, the Marquise de Pezay (or Pezé) and the Marquise de Rougé with her sons. (Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons.) Both women are wearing sashes, and informal round gowns with tight sleeves, of drapey, light fabrics. Note the stripes!

Now here's something exciting. Look at the necklines: bouffy and gathered and round-necked,  almost like a Regency gown line. It almost appears that they are showing their chemises or wearing chemisettes or perhaps they are wearing habit shirts, since the neckline appears to be real, not folds in a fichu. Look at the sleeves: tight, except for pretty puffs at the shoulders. We will see many sleeve puffs durin the Regency. The setting for such gowns? Outdoors, or indoors in a private room far from formal public functions.  A final note. The Marquise de Pezay appears not to be wearing powder.

Look, here is lady in Italy wearing a similar dress at an informal outdoor dance. Il Ballo, dated 1790, is delightful, no? Like many prints, it's full of details, too.

The dancer is wearing a round gown, and like the Marquise's dress, it has rounded, gathered fabric (from chemise or tucker or what?) and the pretty sash. At the same function, the lady at the right who faces us is wearing the long-fashionable conical shaped, long-waisted open robe, closed with laces at the bodice, and opening out in the skirt to show the petticoat.

Another informal garment that I was interested to find was the riding coat or redingote, a 1787 image of which is shown. I understand that it was usually made of wool in menswear styling, complete with large lapels. Wikipedia's 1750 - 1795 in Fashion reports that the redingote would be later worn over the chemise dress. Hmmm.

Around the turn of the decade, the riding coat -- or whatever you want to call it -- and hat over a dress start turning up more frequently in my little sample of paintings.

Here's one, a portrait of Giulia Beccaria and her son, from 1790. There are the big lapels, along with fabric that looks like wool to me, and that riding hat.

Now, scroll back up and look at the lady sitting in her long-waisted dress at the right side in Il Ballo. We know that the open robe was an ancient design. Here's a common example from a little earlier in the century, a portrait of the Archduchess Maria Christine, painted in 1770. Notice how the dress -- called in French a robe -- opens up in the bodice to show the decorate stomacher, and in the front of the skirt a smallish portion of the skirt, called a petticoat, beneath.

By the very early 1790s, that open robe was opening up more and more in the skirt, and the bodice sides were angling farther and farther back. More and more of what was ostensibly "beneath" was showing. Here is Rose Adelaide Decreux in 1791, playing the harp, dressed smashingly in stripes.

The side view of her robe shows it pulling further and further to the back, while her petticoat is really all you see in the front. Look at the base of the petticoat: the big tall flounce, so fashionable for so long, has become a small frill. You will see that small frill through much of the 1790s at the bottom of skirt bottoms, before all becomes the severe Early Regency look. Oh, and there is that fichu, too, all bouffed out and pigeon-breasty, and cutely tied in back.

Here's what I find fascinating. In a 1791 fashion plate, source of the latest in design, we see a lady playing with a yo-yo. She is wearing the open robe, not with stomacher and petticoat, but worn like a riding coat, and over a dress. You can see the dress sleeves, the decor on the dress bodice, the sash, and that robe, pulled back in the same fashion as Rose Adelaide wears it. This makes me wonder if Rose Adelaide is really wearing a dress?

Here is another example of the open robe,  this one in brown silk, from the portrait of Joseph Arkwright and his family. I note that the dress or petticoat is plain, but not muslin -- it has the sheen of silk.

Did you notice how tall and narrow the hats have become since the late 1780s?

Not the turbaned heads of the 1780s had disappeared. Far from it. See for example this portrait, below, of the Frankland sisters, painted in 1795 by John Hoppner. This is a favorite of mine, although I don't quite know why. It appears that they may have been drawing or watercoloring outside, to the boredom of their spaniel, who is napping happily on, not just at, their feet.

About their dresses: times were changing. The sister on the right seems to be wearing a white muslin round gown with a fichu, but look at the waistline. It's rising a little. Her sister to the left is wearing a chemise dress. If you look carefully at the neckline, it's gathered, the way chemise dresses usually were, but the pretty lace frill appears to be quite narrow.

At this point in the decade, and this might just be my sample talking, but it seems as if chemise dresses start to appear more and more frequently, and they are far more plainly built than their counterparts of a decade before. 

A famous Heideloff fashion plate from The Gallery of Fashion shows two young ladies in morning dresses described as of "calico" (fine muslin) fabric out for a drive. The year, 1794.

Frills were still a bit fashionable. The lady on the right's chemise dress has a fine neckline frill, and her sleeves are quite full, controlled by ribbons in the middle of the upper arm by a colored ribbon. The driver wears a ruffled shawl above her dress.

Here is Goya's Maria Teresa Cayetana de Silva. Spanish dress was always a little different or so it seems to be, featuring brighter colors in higher contrast, but if the sash and ribbon are bright, the dress itself might be worn anywhere. There's the narrow frill at neckline again. The narrowness makes the gathered sensation stand out more, and in fact, the whole front is gathered in such a way to accentuate the bustline, just as it would be through the Regency.

The dress appears to be spotted, perhaps with embroidery, as dresses began to be, and the base has just a narrow band of embroidered trim. It's her sash and heavy classically-styled jewelry that stand out. Speaking of which...she is wearing a double strand of what are probably coral beads. You will see "corals" for the next thirty-odd years.

In this year, it happens...the great change...antiquity begins to assert her rule in earnest.

Here is Madame Seriziat, by David.

The chemise dress, with falling collar, but where is the neckline ruffle, where are all the fluffs and puffs? The narrow round-gown-style sleeves to her dress have just little buttons as ornament, and the fabric, none. Only the rosette on her sash and her frankly flirty little hat, and the transition corset, remind me of earlier decades.

The satirists were already at it, too. I love this print . At first you think it's serious, then you look at it a little more...is the lady in white really making her lovers match the Classical statuary? Then you read the title, "The Imitation of Antiquity". Of course.

Now, notice her dress. Regency waistline, Regency neckline, but just a little fuller skirted than dresses would be later.

As we move towards the end of the century, we enter the early Regency. Next post, let's watch what happens to skirts, the bodice and corset line, and to the vestigial frillery.

This has been fun! Now go to 1790s Fashion: A Transition from The Enlightenment to Regency, Part 2

...the rest of the story.

Interested in Reading More?

See all my 1790s posts, plus experiments in costuming in 1790s: Costumes. You'll find a lot of research, such as analysis of extant clothing, portraits, portrait miniatures, fashion magazine texts and plates, even translations from the German Luxus und der Moden, and of course secondary sources, that I've done in efforts to document each part of the costumes made.

Part 2 of the Regency Bodiced Petticoat, Edited with More Fitting Information

As promised, I added further fitting information to part 2 of the tutorial on making a bodiced petticoat from Jennie Chancey's first Regency dress pattern.

The added material shows the process of the first fitting: setting the trial darts on the bodice to shape it. We were lucky with Polly's bodice: it went together very well and she graciously allowed me to photograph the process for you.

Another note: we actually fitted her bodice a week or two after the first fitting session at our sewing circle meeting. By then I had fitted four other bodices, and so I was neater about pinning, but her figure also was perfect for fitting the bodice the way Jennie Chancey's example did.

To read the added information, please see A Tutorial: Sense and Sensibility Bodiced Petticoat - Part 2.

A Snowstorm as a Goodbye to January

As last week wound on and the weathermen and the media wound themselves up, a big snowstorm wended its way from Texas, drifting slowly to the north and the east.

By Friday afternoon I had turned weather bug, dancing rapidly among weather.com's radar screen and our own windows and a very busy day at work. Dinnertime arrived and still no snow, belying the radar coverage: the flakes appeared to be hanging within the clouds. I'll give it to the media: we plugged in the old TV and watched reporters a bit further south in Kentucky, their breath coming out -- in dare I say, clouds of hot air? -- pointing to bare dustings on grass and roads and telling us that we were in the midst of a most dangerous situation. The back of my hand to all this! We have our bread and milk already. Six gallons of the liquid white stuff in the refrigerator, and the fixings for snowed-in lasagna, a massive pasta dish layered with bechamel faintly dashed with grated nutmeg, and of Bolognese sauce, sauteed zucchini, and browned mozzarella to adorn the crust.
Photo: whenever Noah puts on his coat, we call him Fur Person. He has to run away fast or I will scoop him up and rub noses with him over and over. I am glad he usually prefers rubs to running.

Bathtime and bedtime, and daddy, boys and I still were looking out the windows from time to time, but nothing seemed to show itself. Noah had a high fever, so our anticipation was mixing with worry about him.

Eleven p.m. and Christopher awoke, and Curte was padding back and forth between our bedroom and Noah's room, checking his fever, helping him sip his medicine, and we both independently peered out the window. Nada. The sharp line between storm and calm appeared to have chosen a southern boundary and we'd wake to boring dead browns outdoors.

Photo: a 2 1/2-year-old version of the Michelin man. Methinks his coat's too small.

One a.m., and more padding around. Ooh, old floors are nippy round about midnight. We have a bank of tall, mullioned windows at the back of the hall upstairs, and I leaned over the bench for a view. At last, smallish flakes falling, not too thick, but enough to coat the ground. Hooray! Snow enough to crowd out worry over our boy, so I stay awake to ruminate about snow forts past. Three a.m., and Noah had been crying on and off, and Christopher awoke again. Outdoors, the sky was blank. Oh, fiddle-faddle.

Yesterday morning, then, as we stirred to life around 7:30, was a gift to a tired-out family. Snow squalls outdoors, and appropriately gunmetal sky, a soft, deep blanket piling up and drifting against our big trees. If Noah was better, sledding and cocoa?

He wasn't better most of the day, so Curte had the morning to sleep and I drew stories for the tots on the easel and we made oatmeal with raisins and sang and I roughed out a pair of fleece chaps so Christopher could play cowboy.  The view outside was a comfort.

Later, a pleasurable if short trip to the YMCA and its sauna, where when I step inside and sit down in the heat, the indirect light always helps me to dream of the Salzburger Hof in Zell am Zee, and the mineral pools at Banff's Fairmont Hotel, and the heat and daydreams are bliss. We don't vacation often, but when we do, there has to be water, and if it's from a mineral spring, then... fiddle-faddle again. I worried about Curte shooing tired, pettish twins upstairs to a chorus of No! No! No!, and that was it for the daydream and the gym.

Photo: testing the depths. About four inches.

Late afternoon and after all that anticipation and worry, we bundled up, squeaking and squealing, and it was outdoors! Happy hopping, breathless snow depth tests, and Curte took them sledding. Happy, happy snow!

'Course, I was too pooped to take on a three-hour lasagna, but those fixings, they're still waiting, still whispering their creamy siren song.

Postscript: the weekend may have been pleasant for us and gentle on our Kentucky, I know that points further south were not as well treated, and remember unhappily how last year's ice storm brought lasting misery to so many people and to the landscape. Still, an Ithaca girl cannot but love her snow.

She Stooped...and Conquered: A Riding Habit and Quilted Petticoat

Once again, the seamstress and authoress behind the Rockin' the Rococo blog has produced detailed diaries documenting her creation of two complex and difficult-to-make eighteenth-century garments, a riding habit and a quilted petticoat.

Her garments were designed from extant examples, hand sewn by daylight or candlelight, in conditions she kept as close to the experience of an eighteenth-century mantua maker as she could manage, and with fabrics and methods as close as possible to those used in the period.

The results are astonishing, particularly the petticoat.

Further, the documentation is among the best-written and photographed I have ever encountered, and could be treated as a short course in creating eighteenth-century dress.

Photo: Carolyn's hand-sewn silk and wool petticoat, with wool batting.

Hoopskirts Make Good Cat Beds

Well, there you have it. One cat, at least, finds happiness and security curling up on a hoopskirt.

Oh, Ladybug. I lay something down for just a moment, and you have to nap on it...

In other news, I am playing with the look of this blog. The header background is a photo of a fragment of real 18th century toile fabric from my collection. I will probably play around a bit more with the blog layout. It looks a little rough, but then, I am not a professional graphic artist.

A Tutorial: Sense and Sensibility Bodiced Petticoat - Part 2

(Note: heavily edited with new information on January 31st)

This is the second part of a multi-part tutorial about making a bodiced petticoat using the bodice portion of the basic Sense and Sensibility Regency dress pattern. The tips are designed to supplement Jennie Chancey's online directions for a bodiced petticoat. If you missed the first part, you can read Part 1 here.)

As always, please click on each image for a larger version.

In this post: fitting the bodice toile and then basting the darts, the second fitting, and then creating the final pattern.

Fitting the Bodice Toile with Darts

At the last meeting of our period sewing circle we did a first fitting of the bodice toiles, pinning them with darts to create the lifted-up Regency look. We followed Jennie's directions: see the section titled "Fitting the Bodice Toile". What we learned was really helpful.

When we fitted the bodices, we noticed that everyone's darts varied quite a bit in size and position, depending on each person's build and bust size and shape. For example, Caroline really didn't need three darts on each side, and one was angled strongly because she has a very slender build. The darts on my bodice were all strongly angled. The darts on Polly's bodice, by contrast, were very similar indeed to those Jennie shows in her notes. By then, I had fitted four other bodices, so by this point my darts were more neatly pinned and more confidently set, but still...

Anyhow, nota bene: your darts may vary!

Let's start with pinning up Polly's bodice, since hers went so well.

Note how loose the bodice is. Remember that we cut them from dress bodices, which are not tightly fitted, and then we added fabric in the bust that we will later gather with a drawstring.

Here are the very first darts I set. For details on just how the pins are set into the fabric, here is a photo that Jennie provided in her directions:

The darts are just under the bust point and set just to figure out where the bust point is. Polly also used blue chalk to lightly mark the bust point.

If you look at the shoulder straps, you will see that I have made little snips into the fabric. The straps are too wide, and the armscye is too tight underneath Polly's arm, so unless I snipped little cuts into the edges, I wouldn't be able to fit the bodice very well at all.

Then I fitted these darts up and over the bust point, as Jennie's directions ask us to do. See the image below. Do you see how the bodice fabric is beginning to pull in a little? As we set the second and third darts to the outside of the first darts, the fabric started to shape to the bust.

Here below are the second and third darts pinned into place. As Jennie's directions require, we are attempting to push up the bust and center it in.

Just as with the first darts, the second and third darts are just barely angled outwards. They shaped themselves naturally as I pinned them -- it suprised me just how naturally the process went.

Here below is the bodice darted, shown from the side. All that excess at the neckline will be taken in, and when the bodice is laid flat again, I shall also narrow the straps, cutting off the fabric at their outer edges to the depth of the little snips I made. More on that later.

In the photo below the bodice is removed and laid flat as it can go. With a pencil, I am marking the darts with a pencil. If you look carefully, you can see the shadow of the darted-out fabric layer underneath the top fabric layer. I am marking the edge of that shadow line. Just as I had hoped, the darts at the top had a very small curve in them. It was magical to see this happen. Funny: to think that some darts should please a person so much.

So there was Polly's bodice at its first fitting. It went very well.

The rest of us had a slightly tougher time. We'll use the experience with darting my bodice below as a guide to how everyone's darts are going to differ.

Basting the Darts -- and Refitting Them if Needed

Here below is what the bodice looked like after Jenni and I had fitted it -- on me -- with darts. Sure reminds me of an eighteenth century shape, all straight lines converging at the base. The top of the bodice was only a little poufed out, which is hard to see in this photo. I am smaller busted than Polly.

 

Jennie's picture, below.

Do you see how my darts are set on an angle, where Jennie's darts are set more vertically?  She writes that when you create the darts, that you will need at least three of them, and that they will vary. Well, when we pinned me, the darts seemed to do a better job when they were set on an angle.

Repinning Darts: Do If Needed

I needed to set my pins more neatly: they did pin down the fabric approximately where it needed to go, but didn't create neat darts that stuck out. Jennie's picture, by contrast, shows pins that outline and create darts neatly. If you're experienced, you probably won't have to do repin your darts after the fitting, but all of us had some trouble pinning the bust neatly, because -- erm-- things move around. It took me fitting the bodices of four different women before I was able to create neat dart lines during the actual fitting.

So...here is a method that worked for me to pin proper darts after the fitting.
First I laid the bodice as flat as it would go, and smoothed all the darts, creating what almost look like pleats across the bodice.

Then I pinched the fabric carefully between my fingers and inserted pins horizontally at the depth I wanted the dart to go. The pins outlined the seam line where I would baste. I repinned all of the darts.

Then I basted up the darts (see below for details on the basting process), and went to try on the bodice again.

Oops, I didn't make the darts long enough. I had looked at Jennie's pictures and the seams didn't look long, and for that first fitting they seemed right.

However, Jennie's directions say: "(the darts are not meant to behave like conventional darts (which basically come to just under the bust point). Instead, they are intended to go over the bust point to force the bosom inward and upward. As a result, they need to be quite snug."

Aha. My darts did not go over the bust point.

So, back to the bathroom to try on the bodice.

Tip: to see how the thing fits you either have to have a helper hold the back closed, or you can close the back with a plastic hair clip. You cannot pin the back closed unless you are very slim indeed, for the snug fit won't allow you to slip the bodice on and off.

Here is a photo of the kind of clip I used.

So, I refitted the bodice to myself, by myself. Here is how it was done:

Rather than take the basting out and start from scratch, I took the top of each basted dart in hand and pinched more fabric above the top of each dart and pinned it in place. I made sure that the two darts closest to the center of the bodice went over the bust point. There was no way I could take a photo of this process, but it was less frustrating than one might believe.

I laid out the bodice flat again and smoothed everything to see the curvature of what I had. Remember, the bodice won't lay entirely flat, because you've made darts to shape the fabric into a three-dimensional form. Then I  pinned the new upper parts of the darts neatly, noting that there was a curvature at the top of each one, and drew curved dart lines with a pencil. Jennie says that there is indeed a bit of a curve in each dart. If you click on the image to see the larger version, you can make out the pencil markings.

Note: you might not want to make sure large curves as I did: they just seemed to work best for my particular bust line.

You may not choose to baste the lower and upper parts of the darts separately. That was me just being cautious, because I didn't want to have to rip out entire seams once again, only the top parts if I had to.

Here are the new tops of the darts, pinned.

Next step: time to baste the darts again.

Here's an easy way to show how it can be done.

First, pinch the fabric at the top of the dart, lifting your fabric up off your table.

Then fold the fabric together into two on the dart fold and lay it flat.

Now you have the fabric ready to baste: baste up the line you drew to the edge of the fabric, and take three backstitches to really fix the thread tightly in place, and snip of the thread end. Do this for each dart.

Here are the completed darts. Note the curves in the darts.

Then I tried it on for fit. Not bad: the fit did achieve the lift and centering of the bust that I looked for.

Making Other Adjustments from the First Fitting

At the first fitting we had discovered that  all of us had way too much fabric under the arms, like a very loose shirt, not a snug bra-like bodice. What to do?

We'll use my bodice as an example. I pinched out fabric with my fingers at the side seams, and pinned it. Then I basted a new seam at the new depth. If you look at the second-to-last picture in the section above, you will see the first, too-loose seam, and the second, tighter seam.

The bodice straps were also too wide on all of us. Once again, we'll use my bodice as an example. The bodice hung off my shoulder, as you can see in the photo above, and the armscye was very tight, so that it bunched up under my arm. So I drew a wider armscye with a pencil, and cut it. Below you see the line, ready to cut.

Preparing Final Pattern Pieces

At this point I was happy with the fit.

Remember that the final bodice is in two layers, a lining layer and an outer layer. In Jennie's instructions she assumes that this toile we have made will just be saved as a pattern, and that we'll cut fresh fabric for the real bodice. Because I do not expect to make another bodiced petticoat, I am using the toile pieces as the actual lining.

No matter what the case, we still need to take the toile apart so that we can cut the pieces for the outer layer (or new lining and outer layer).

First, I marked all seams, on both sides, with a pencil.

Then I trimmed off the bottom of the bodice to about an inch and a half below the waistline of my real dress. Jennie's directions have you do this early on, before basting the toile, but again, I am cautious. I wanted to make sure that I had the thing fitted right first.

Tip: when cutting across seams, lay the seam flat and just cut both seam and fabric together.

Then I ripped the seams open. Here is where taking three big back stitches to end a seam pays off. You snip the backstitches and you're ready to pull out the thread. Here below, snip!

Then pull the thread out from the knotted end. It should just slip right out.

Here are all the pieces ready to be used as a pattern to cut the final pieces.

Next up: constructing the final bodice.