Fashion In The Time Of Jane Austen (4 page)

‘Morning Dress’
(La Belle Assemblée
, 1814). Domestic bliss: mother and baby in matching white ruffles. Her cap is trimmed with pink ribbon, and her bodice has pink ‘braces’ that cup the bosom giving extra support.

Whereas gentlemen’s clothes changed to reflect their changed lifestyle, the most significant changes for women were to the silhouette. Although in Paris the high-waisted silhouette was lauded as the apex of the refinement of classical antiquity, in England the ‘waist-less gown’ was frequently greeted as an abomination especially by male commentators – as in the satirical song,
Shepherds, I Have Lost My Waist
:

Shepherds, I have lost my waist, Have you seen my body? Sacrificed to modern taste, I’m quite a hoddy-doddy! For fashion I that part forsook Where sages place the belly; ‘Tis gone – and I have not a nook For cheesecake, tart or jelly. Never shall I see it more, Till common sense returning, My body to my legs restore, Then I shall cease from mourning. Folly and fashion do prevail To such extremes upon the fair A woman’s only top and tail, The body’s banish’d God knows where!

Fashionable ladies could not have paid much attention, as the waist remained high until the mid-1820s, with only a brief hiatus whilst Napoleon excluded England from trade with Europe. The first ‘Grecian’ gowns were simle shifts of muslin with practically no shape except that given by a ribbon tied beneath the bosom. It was a style most suited to the young and slender, and although it did not carry the political significance held in France, the freedom and comfort of a light gown worn with little underpinning and flat slippers must have been a relief that many women were unwilling to give up.

Wiener Moden
, 1816. A long-sleeved evening gown of white gauze with pink satin roses and a striped satin petticoat worn with pink shoes and white gloves.

Gowns were décolleté even for day when the neckline might be ‘V’-shaped or square with a tucker. The round gown had bodice and skirt joined with a seam round the waistline, whereas open gowns were split at the front – as they had been for much of the eighteenth century – allowing an underskirt of contrasting colour or fabric to show.

‘Half Dress’
(Ackermann’s Repository
, 1816). Half dress of pink and white striped percale with Mameluke sleeves, knots of green ribbon and white ruchings. After 1810 skirts were more frequently shorter with decorative details around the hem.

The petticoat was a dress worn beneath the robe or open gown as another layer of formal garment rather than underwear. The petticoat provided a convenient extra layer that could be used to give a contrast or depth of colour allowing the outer dress to be gossamer thin. A modern variation appearing at the turn of the century was the tunic dress, extremely popular for its Greco-Roman overtones; it had a tunic often in a contrasting colour bordered in gold, worn asymmetrically over a plain dress.

It could also allow the richer fabric of the outer dress to be tucked out of the way when walking through muddy lanes without the danger of showing an indecent ankle. But even this was not without criticism as Elizabeth Bennet found when she arrived at Netherfield to visit her sister after a three-mile cross-country walk. Miss Bingley couldn’t wait to say: ‘I hope you saw her petticoat, six inches deep in mud, I am absolutely certain; and the gown which had been let down to hide it not doing its office.’ Older dresses were often recycled as petticoats, as Jane Austen mentions in a letter in December 1798.

Trains became a feature of gowns for day and evening wear in 1800 as Oliver Goldsmith notes:

As a lady’s quality or fashion was once determined here by the circumference of her hoop, both are now measured by the length of her tail. Women of moderate fortunes are contented with tails moderately long but ladies of true taste and distinction set no bounds to their ambition in this particular.

‘Evening Dress’ (
Ackermann’s Repository
, October 1817). Beautiful evening dress with tiers of Vandyked lace and rouleau bound with strings of pearls.

Men were often less enthusiastic, complaining of tripping over them, but many gowns had a method of allowing the train to be pulled up out of the way like those of Catherine and Isabella Thorpe, who ‘pinned up each other’s train for the dance’ when they were dancing at the assembly rooms in
Northanger Abbey
.

It is impossible to underestimate how important dancing was to the Regency lady; there were so few opportunities to meet that eligible bachelor with ten thousand a year, and so much competition in the flooded marriage market that every ball or assembly had to be approached strategically with the perfect gown as the most important element.

Just as riding costume offered men a freedom of cut that was so desirable that it was translated into ordinary wear, it did the same for women. Providing a more practical yet still fashionable ensemble, the riding habit frequently enjoyed male styling, taking its inspiration from the gentleman’s greatcoat towards the end of the eighteenth century, and sporting military braid at the beginning of the nineteenth. Usually made from woolen, or in summer linen fabrics, it became popular for travelling and more energetic activities. Brides often chose a new riding habit as their going-away outfit. In
Emma
, Jane Fairfax is wearing hers for a boat trip at Weymouth when she is nearly ‘dashed into the sea’ only to be saved by Mr Dixon who ‘with the greatest presence of mind, caught hold of her habit’.

A Group of Waltzers
, 1817. Dancing was a wonderful opportunity for a young lady to display her beauty and grace; it also offered a very rare chance for her to speak to a beau without being overheard by her ever-present chaperone.

The Squire’s Door
(after George Morland,
c
. 1790). A stylish riding habit with wide lapels and caped shoulders is based on a gentleman’s greatcoat. Her hat echoes the new taller masculine styles as worn by the gentleman in the background.

La Belle Assemblée
(February 1813). The caption read: ‘A stone coloured habit, trimmed round the body with swansdown, and ornamented entirely across the bosom with a thick row of rich silk braiding to correspond … Large bear or seal skin muff; stone coloured kid gloves, and black kid sandals.’