The Official Essex Sisters Companion Guide (12 page)

It turns out that scholars of fashion find Regency ruffles a particular interesting item. According to the Victoria and Albert Museum’s
Four Hundred Years of Fashion
, it was only when the Napoleonic wars concluded in 1815, and the English could again visit Paris, that dresses began gaining trimmings. English gowns had been high-waisted and straight, whereas French gowns were loaded with trimmings that soon came to dominate English style as well.

Trimmings at the hem remained fashionable until the 1820s, growing wider and softer. Here’s a fabulous evening dress, published in a French fashion magazine in 1817. Just look at these gorgeous scalloped flounces! It’s interesting to note the return here to a natural waist, though that is not the case in later English dresses shown in
Ackermann’s.

During the time of the Essex Sisters novels, dresses were decorated as never before—they couldn’t have too much embellishment. Luxury items such as lace, bows, artificial flowers, embroidery, glittering tinsel, and especially ruffles announced to anyone within eyesight that the owner was wealthy. A ruffle was a luxury item due to the tedious amount of time it took to sew them.

Eloisa specifically mentions the craze for ruffles at several points. In
Pleasure for Pleasure
, for example, Griselda asked to see Mayne’s horses in the Epson Downs racing stable.

                       
“I’m not sure you should come to the stables,” he told Griselda. “There’s so many ruffles on that costume that you might frighten the horses.”

                            
“Nonsense,” Griselda said, waving her parasol about in a manner guaranteed to strike fear into the heart of a skittish thoroughbred.

Pleasure for Pleasure

I found a walking dress from
La Belle Assemblée
that may have given Eloisa her inspiration—it even shows the parasol!

And here’s another walking dress that is equally beruffled, this time from
Ackermann’s
September 1818 issue (
Pleasure for Pleasure
begins in the year 1818). Notice the ruffles running from under the bosom to the foot of the dress in front, as well as several layers of ruffles at the bottom!

Since dresses loaded with lavish trimmings dominated the English style during this time, Eloisa uses luxury fashion in a myriad of ways: to communicate status, but also to reveal competition, ambition, and taste. I’ll take a closer look at
Kiss Me, Annabel
to show you what I mean. In this novel Eloisa uses fashion in countless ways, but I will focus on Imogen to show how a woman can cause a scandal by going against the fashionable trends.

In
Kiss Me, Annabel
, Imogen, Lady Maitland, created a scandal with her choice of dress after the death of her husband. Imogen has inherited a significant amount of money, and she announces that “widows could dress precisely as they wished.” Imogen amuses herself by shocking respectable matrons of the
ton
and flaunting a wardrobe full of mourning clothing cut in daring styles that left little of her figure to the imagination.

Eloisa uses this rebellious decision to depict how Imogen’s gowns influence men’s attitudes at Lady Feddrington’s ball and, in turn, how Imogen behaved. Eloisa is using fashion to help Imogen deal with her grief.

Here’s a scene at the ball that explicitly discusses Imogen’s decision. Annabel is trying to pin up her unruly curls in the retiring room and Imogen plops down beside her. The scene is written from Annabel’s point of view, since she is the heroine of the book.

                       
“You have to expect attention,” Annabel pointed out. “After all, you dressed for it.” She let a little sarcasm creep into her tone.

                            
“Do you think that I should buy another of these gowns?” Imogen asked, staring into the mirror. She gave a seductive roll of her shoulders and the bodice settled even lower on her chest. She was dressed in black faille, a perfectly respectable fabric for a
widow. But the modiste had saved on fabric, for the bodice was nothing more than a few scraps of cloth, falling to a narrow silhouette that clung to every curve.

Kiss Me, Annabel

The illustrations I found of evening and ball dresses did indeed have very low-cut bodices, although dresses worn during the day covered the ladies up to the chin. Here, for example, is a very low-cut dress, barely covering the bosom, taken from
La Belle Assemblée
’s May 1817 issue. Just take a deep breath or remove a bit of lace and you have the scandalous Imogen.

After spending so much time with fashion plates, I became very curious about what the dresses would actually look like in real life. Of course, most garments from the period have not survived.

But Eloisa sent me this fashion plate with a photograph of the dress itself. The fashion plate is dated 1810, and appeared in
Costume Parisien
. The model is shown with her nipples barely covered (she’s living dangerously, lifting her arm like that). The actual evening gown was worn by the Countess of Palfi, and can be seen in the Châteaux de
Malmaison et Bois-Préau Malmaison, the home of Joséphine Bonaparte. Interestingly, the countess has chosen to drop the decoration at the arms and around the hem.

As I was researching all this clothing, I found myself spending a lot of time reading websites run by experts, in particular the award-winning website Regency World, run by best-selling Regency author Candice Hern.

Eloisa came up with the idea of asking Ms. Hern to share some of her incredible understanding of Regency fashion with us, and Ms. Hern graciously agreed to write the
following for us. I am very happy to conclude our discussion of fashion with an essay that details the various categories of dress in the period.

by Candice Hern

During the Regency period, the terms Undress, Half Dress, and Full Dress were used for both men and women to describe, in a very general way, the type of dress worn for different occasions. I have found no specific definitions for these terms in the ladies’ magazines of the period, but they are used so often that one can only assume that the terms were well understood by the magazines’ readers, so that no explanation was required. My general definitions are based on a study of the prints using these labels. Still, the designations can be confusing.

FULL DRESS
was the most formal type of clothing, and included attire worn in the late evening to very formal events. Prints titled “Ball Dress” or “Evening Dress” or “Full Evening Dress” would fall into this category. Dresses for these formal occasions would be made of the richest fabrics and most expensive trimmings: silks and sarsenets and crepes, sometimes with overdresses of fine gauze, tulle, or net. Rather than simple embroidery embellishments, you might find beading, with seed pearls or silver and gold spangles. The best jewelry would have been worn with Full Dress, including expensive gemstones set in necklaces, earrings, and bracelets. If the dress was short-sleeved, over-the-elbow gloves would have been worn. These gloves were much more loose-fitting
than those worn today, and may have included ties at the top to keep them on. French prints show much tighter-fitting gloves than in the British prints.

“Evening Dress” from
La Belle Assembleé
, October 1817.

Hats are sometimes seen in Full Dress prints, but the majority of prints show bare heads with simple adornments, like fillets, bandeaus, and tiaras. Sometimes ropes of pearls or other gems, or sometimes flowers were woven into styled hair. Turbans, full and demi, were also popular throughout the period.

For more information on Full Dress, see the Full Dress Overview on my website at
http://candicehern.com
.

UNDRESS
was not what you might think. It was not underwear! Undress was the least formal type of dress, something worn very casually or informally, i.e., the type of clothing one would wear at home, walking outdoors, shopping, etc. Those occasions where we might wear jeans would be the times when Undress was worn. The term is almost never used on a print title, but is sometimes seen in the accompanying commentary.

Prints of a “Morning Dress” would be considered Undress, especially an “Indoor Morning Dress.” If we use Morning Dresses as the most typical form of Undress, we see mostly white dresses, simple in style, and somewhat more loose-fitting than more formal wear. For more information on Morning Dresses, see the Morning Dress Overview on my website.

“Morning Dress” from
Ackermann’s Repository of Arts
, June 1817.

Walking Dresses worn during the morning or early afternoon could also, generally, fall into the category of Undress. Just as we might hang around the house in jeans and a T-shirt, then just throw on a jacket to go shopping, the typical Regency miss might simply don a bonnet and throw a pelisse over her Morning Dress to go out walking. Some Walking Dresses were slightly more elegant than the indoor Morning Dress, as one never knew whom one might run into at the library or the linen-draper. Even so, these outdoor ensembles would still have been considered as Undress, as they were the least formal type of clothing. Walking Dresses always included an outer garment of some kind, such as a spencer (short jacket), a pelisse (long coat), a mantle, or a shawl. A bonnet was always worn when outdoors in the daytime. Walking Dresses worn in the later afternoon are often titled “Promenade Dress,” as these are the ensembles worn while walking, or promenading, in Hyde Park during the fashionable hours, where
one went to see and be seen. The afternoon Walking Dress is typically a bit finer than the morning Walking Dress, because during that fashionable promenade, one wanted to look one’s best. For more information on Walking Dresses, see the Walking Dress Overview on my website.

“Promenade Dress” from
La Belle Assemblée
, August 1811.

“Morning Walking Dress” from
La Belle Assemblée
, October 1814.

HALF DRESS
fell somewhere in between Undress and Full Dress. Half Dress follows the less formal morning dress and afternoon walking dress into the late afternoon and early evening, and sometimes later in the evening if the occasion was not strictly formal. Prints labeled “Afternoon Dress” would be recognized as Half Dress. “Dinner Dress” and “Opera Dress” would also have been considered Half Dress, as neither dinner parties nor the theatre were deemed formal occasions.

“Half Dress” from
Ackermann’s Repository of Arts
, November 1810.

Sometimes a Promenade Dress is labeled as “Promenade Half Dress,” which one can assume referred to an ensemble worn in the late afternoon, generally after 5 p.m., when the
haute ton
made a show of walking through Hyde Park. The ensemble would be dressier than a Morning Walking Dress, with perhaps richer fabrics and trimmings, but not as fancy as an Evening Dress.

So, as you can see, Half Dress is sort of a catch-all middle area of fashion.

And just to confuse us further, there is also
HALF FULL DRESS
. It appears as though Half Full Dress is simply Half Dress with a bit of fancy accessorizing. One might, for example, attend the opera in Half Dress, then add expensive jewelry, hair ornaments, silk shawls, etc. to attend a late evening party. So, not quite the full-blown elegance and richness of Full Dress, but fancy enough for a night on the Town. Half Full Dress is more or less the equivalent of “semi-formal.”

“Half Full Dress” from
La Belle Assemblée
, July 1813.

For more information and lots of Half Dress prints, see the Half Dress Overview on my website.

Not all women, of course, could afford the luxury of a wardrobe that allowed them to change clothes at least three times a day. The Essex sisters didn’t have much to work with when their father died, but to find the rich husbands they needed, they would have had to contrive wardrobes that allowed them to fit
into the high society of the Regency. That would have meant they could not have worn the same dress in the morning and then again to an evening party, even if re-accessorized. People would notice. To move with ease among the
ton
they would have had to appear convincingly in Undress, Half Dress, and Full Dress, as the occasion required.