REIGNS OF LOUIS XVIII. AND CHARLES X.
1815 TO 1830.
Importation of foreign fashions in 1815—White dresses,
white feathers, and fleurs de lys—Emigrant ladies—Russian
toques—Male and female dressmakers—Ruchings—Short sleeves
and long gloves—Herbault’s bonnets—“Chefs”—Anglomania in
1815—Green gauze veils; spencers—The “canezou”—Lacroix, the
stay-maker—Dr. Pelletan and Charles X.—Wasps—The “Ourika”
fashions—The famous leg-of-mutton sleeves—Fashions “à
l’Ipsiboé,” “au Trocadéro,” and “à la Dame Blanche”—Blonde caps
and turbans—Head-dresses—Fashions “à la giraffe;” “the last
sigh of Jocko”—Female book-keepers; shopwomen—The Café des
Mille-Colonnes.
The lamentable presence of the allied armies in our capital induced us to
adopt some fashions from abroad. Our countrywomen copied certain details
of dress from the Germans, the Poles, the Russians, and the English. They
professed to “find good in everything,” quite forgetting the claims of
patriotism.
The noble ladies who returned from emigration in 1815 could not reconcile
themselves to the fashions of new France, and the shape of gowns and hats
became almost an affair of state. The Legitimists, when once they had
recrossed the frontier, endeavoured to repudiate whatever could remind
them, nearly or remotely, of the Republic and the Empire.
The fashions of 1815 were, generally speaking, influenced by the changes
effected by the Restoration in France. The white flag floated from the
dome of the Tuileries, and there was a passion for white gowns; while
feathers of the same hue waved on the heads of women, in honour, no
doubt, of the heroic white plumes that Henri IV. “bore along the path of
honour.” More than one great lady at the court of Louis XVIII. trimmed
the edge of her skirt with a wreath of lilies, while she altered but
little the shape of her gown, which remained as short waisted as under
Napoleon I. In the early part of January, 1816, a wealthy foreigner
appeared at the opera wearing a Russian toque. She created quite a
sensation; and the next day a first-rate milliner of the Rue Vivienne had
reproduced the head-dress, which soon afterwards was universally worn.
There was a general craving for splendid dress. Enthusiastic Royalists
gathered round Louis XVIII. and the Comte d’Artois, and thronged the
apartments of the Tuileries. Nothing was thought of in the Faubourg St.
Germain but balls, concerts, and entertainments. A great revival took
place in trade, and served as the general excuse for extravagance.
In a very short time Paris possessed four renowned ladies’ tailors,
thirteen milliners in large practice, seven noted florists, three
favourite stay-makers, eight famous dressmakers, and eight excellent
ladies’ shoemakers.
White gowns, trimmed at the bottom with flowers, were generally worn both
at official and private balls. Flowers, roses for the most part, were
worn in the hair. Plaid dresses were in fashion, dresses “à l’indolente,”
and dresses trimmed with chinchilla.
Dresses were made in various styles. Sometimes sleeves were short and
puffed, and trimmed with several rows of ruching; and sometimes they were
funnel-shaped, that is, there was a certain amount of fulness at the
shoulder which gradually diminished as they reached the wrist, where they
were hermetically closed by a ribbon over a coloured kid glove.
Dresses were cut “low,” and necklaces of pearls or garnets were worn.
When the sleeves were short, long gloves concealed the arm, and the
effect was very pretty. Embroidered “toques” were also in fashion,
ornamented with pearls and a wreath of marabout feathers.
Long gloves were expensive; but no well-dressed woman hesitated to put
on a new pair every day, a soiled glove not being admissible. Tan was a
favourite colour.
Valuable jewels, wide bright-coloured sashes, delicate fans, and
embroidered or braided reticules completed the attire, and gave it
character as well as intrinsic worth. Married women wore little
half-handkerchiefs tied round the throat, and young girls wore
apron-dresses (tablier-robes) entirely in white.
The hair was arranged in little curls close round the forehead and
temples, and in small rolls at the back of the head. Artificial flowers
were used, but sparingly.
Bonnets were made without curtains, and were worn rather tilted forward
over the face, so as to display the chignon and neck; they were trimmed
with artificial flowers. Large chip hats and white feathers were
purchased at Herbault’s, who also sold small white satin ones, the brims
of which were cut into points or squares, and surmounted with marabouts.
Other milliners manufactured “cornettes” in black velvet, edged with
white tulle; they even placed black hats on white “cornettes.”
Many dresses were made of fine white merino, with wide stripes of dead
silver, called “chefs.” White merino boots, laced at the side, completed
the costume.
During the first few years of the Restoration our fair countrywomen
indulged in various successive caprices. The “Journal des Modes” from
1814 to 1815 holds up the most extraordinary fashions to our admiration.
Women, moreover, were seized with Anglomania. A caricature of the time
represents “Mme. Grognard” trying to force her daughter to dress herself
“à l’Anglaise.”
The young girl replies,—
“Gracious! how frightful! What dreadful taste! To think of wearing
English fashions!”
But, criticism notwithstanding, ladies adopted the English custom of
straw bonnets and green gauze veils. They wore spencers, a garment
resembling a jacket with the skirts cut off a little below the waist.
These were generally made of velvet, reps, or satin, and in every colour.
They wrapped themselves in green kerseymere cloaks with double collars,
in merino coats, and in silk “douillettes,” or wadded gowns.
But imperceptibly, and because good taste never altogether cedes its
rights, puffings and heavy trimmings were discarded, and the “canezou,” a
sort of sleeveless bodice, superseded the spencer. Muslin canezous were
becoming to most women, setting off the figure of both young and old.
Unfortunately Frenchwomen soon returned to the ungraceful leg-of-mutton
sleeves, and sleeves “à berêt,” “à la folle,” “à l’imbécile,” and “à
l’éléphant.” Every day brought forth some new thing, of more or less
wonderful shape.
Cambric chemises were beautifully embroidered and trimmed with narrow
Valenciennes round the neck and sleeves. An embroidered jaconet gown cost
as much as 900 francs. And this did not discourage, but, indeed, promoted
prodigality in the purchase of stockings and pocket-handkerchiefs.
For full-dress mourning, black “toques” were worn, embroidered in bronzed
steel with a plume of black feathers, and black gowns were similarly
embroidered.
Stays were costly, and remained in fashion. Those of Lacroix, a very good
maker, cost one hundred francs; they were made in two pieces, and a small
cushion covered with white silk was fastened on behind to give elegance
to the shape.[58]
Jean Jacques Rousseau was laughed at for writing, that “The limbs should
be free beneath the garments covering them; nothing should interfere with
their action, nothing should fit too closely to the body; there should be
no ligatures.” Far from following his advice, women generally wore steel
busks in their stays. And yet the celebrated Dr. Pelletan, after making
many experiments in the interests of hygiene and dress, had proved that
the use of busks was highly dangerous. They attracted electricity to the
chest, and might occasion internal irritation in that region.
Charles X. placed himself among the opponents of stays. “Formerly,” said
he, “it was not uncommon to see Dianas, Venuses, or Niobes in France; but
now we see nothing but wasps.”
In 1824, the Duchesse de Duras brought out her romance, “Ourika,” which
was already known and admired at court, at the Royal Printing House, as
if it were a scientific work. It was received with rapture by the general
public, and was spoken of as the “Atala of the Salons.” There were
“Ourika” bonnets, caps, and gowns, Ourika shawls, and a colour called
Ourika.
This sort of passing enthusiasm recurred very frequently; and no sooner
had a book or a circumstance obtained the notice of the public, than it
received consecration, as it were, from the fashionable world. From 1822
to 1830 the following colours were in fashion: “Ipsiboé,” “Trocadéro,”
“bronze,” “smoke,” “Nile-water,” “solitary,” “reed,” “mignonette-seed,”
“amorous toad,” “frightened mouse,” “spider meditating crime,” &c.
The eighteenth century seemed to have come back, in the matter of
designations at any rate.
A paroxysm of splendid extravagance was occasioned by the coronation of
Charles X.
Hair-dressers travelled post to Rheims for the ceremony, and were
besieged by their fair clients. During the night preceding the
coronation, one of them dressed the hair of more than five and twenty
ladies, at a charge of forty francs apiece.
We must not content ourselves with a mere mention of leg-of-mutton
sleeves, they deserve a longer notice, by reason of their own long and
absolute reign.
Leg-of-mutton sleeves first appeared in 1820, and attained by degrees to
such enormous size, that a woman of fashion could not pass through a door
of ordinary dimensions. They were kept in shape by whalebones, or by a
sort of balloon stuffed with down.
Such a sleeve exactly resembled the joint of meat from which it took its
name. An extraordinary fashion, indeed! It is hard to understand the
“good taste” that presided at its invention.
And yet the whole dress of woman soon became centred, as it were, in the
leg-of-mutton sleeve. There could be nothing to harmonize in the rest of
a costume, with sleeves that preponderated as much as the paniers of old,
and the steel crinolines of twenty-five years ago. We can but laugh when
we examine some portraits of the period.
There were some slight changes in the fashions in the reign of Charles
X., from 1824 to 1830, attributable generally to incidents of the
day, or to popular plays or novels. Colours, crape, head-dresses,
and turbans were named after “Ipsiboé,” a romance of passion by the
Vicomte d’Arlincourt; there were Trocadéro ribbons, in honour of the
Duc d’Angoulême’s campaign in Spain; “Elodie” blue, and Scotch plaids
“à la Dame Blanche,” after Boïeldieu’s fine opera; and extraordinary
whimsicalities, “à la wonderful lamp,” “à l’Emma,” “à la Marie Stuart,”
and “à la Clochette.” Bonnets with large hollow brims, feathers and
ribbons, Sultana turbans, “berêts,” and caps of Chantilly blond, were
still worn.
Numbers of fashionable women wore a “sentiment” round their throats, or
a “carcan necklace” of velvet, or bows either of fur or curled feathers.
Gowns barely reached to the ankles; they were trimmed with gauze, blond,
bows of ribbon, bands of velvet, twists of satin; feather-fringe and
ornaments were sewn on to the material.
The short skirts of 1828 caused the boots we had copied from the English
to be appreciated; they were both comfortable and sightly.
Velvet “toques” were in favour; likewise velvet “witchouras,”
chinchilla muffs, bodices draped “à la Sévigné;” satin bonnets trimmed
with marabouts, satin pelisses lined with swans’-down; satin gowns
covered with crape, trimmed with puffings of the same, roses and pearl
wheat-ears, invented by Mme. Hippolyte; merino gowns trimmed with satin,
Moabitish turbans in crape lisse with gold stripes and a plume of
feathers, and, lastly, scarfs in barège-cashmere.
The hair was arranged in plaits, or high, stiff curls, on the top of the
head, mixed with ribbons and flowers, or with curled feathers “invented
by M. Plaisir,” or a steel comb.
To these we may add sashes of China crape and gauze, belts of hair,
morocco leather baskets, diamond waist-buckles, morocco bags shaped like
pocket-books or shells, stamped leather bags, lace mantillas, plaid and
damask satin parasols, and terry velvet over-shoes lined with fur.
In 1827, France possessed for the first time a living giraffe. The animal
had been sent to Charles X. by the Pacha of Egypt, and was placed in the
Jardin des Plantes.
The giraffe became extraordinarily popular. Never before had the Jardin
des Plantes attracted so many visitors; crowds of sight-seers rushed to
see it eat or walk about, and for several months it engrossed the whole
attention of the public. Dramatic authors constantly alluded to the
giraffe in their pieces, and the street organs continually repeated the
tunes that had been composed in its honour.
Then Fashion took it up, and created gowns “à la giraffe,” sashes “à la
giraffe,” bonnets “à la giraffe,” &c.; and dress was so contrived as to
immortalize the gift of the Pacha of Egypt.
On the arrival of a chimpanzee in Paris the same results occurred; and
when poor Jocko had expired, the ladies honoured his memory by wearing
materials named “Jocko’s last sigh.”
Our task would be a long and tedious one were we to attempt to describe
the costume of the lemonade-seller during the Restoration, that of the
jeweller’s or goldsmith’s assistant, of the “lingère,” the florist, the
confectioner, &c., in a word, of all the “bourgeoises” whose station was
behind a counter or at the book-keeper’s desk.
Each of these adopted a costume appropriate to her business. The
wonderful costume of the lemonade-seller of the Palais Royal excited the
admiring envy of the ladies of the court, and as for the “cafetière” of
the “Mille-Colonnes,” a fashionable hair-dresser expended all his art in
her service, just as if he had been devoting his “genius” to the head of
an illustrious princess.
The Duchesse de Berry would fain have been a leader of fashion during the
Restoration, but she never succeeded in the attempt.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: Louis-Philippe 1832 to 1837
Louis-Philippe 1842 to 1846]