DRESS AND FASHIONS
Jane Austen had a lively and natural interest in dress, and her letters
abound in allusions to fashions, new clothes, and contrivances for
bringing into the mode those that had fallen behind it. She cannot have
had much chance of seeing new fashions at Steventon, but when she went
to a town her instincts revived. During her visit to Bath, 1799, when
she was staying with her brother Edward and his wife Elizabeth, and
some of their children, she writes—
“My cloak is come home, I like it very much, and can now exclaim with
delight, like J. Bond at hay harvest, ‘This is what I have been looking
for these three years.’ I saw some gauzes in a shop in Bath Street
yesterday at only fourpence a yard, but they were not so good or so
pretty as mine. Flowers are very much worn, and fruit is still more the
thing. Elizabeth has a bunch of strawberries, and I have seen grapes,
cherries, plums, and apricots. There are likewise almonds and raisins,
French plums, and tamarinds at the grocers’, but I have never seen
any of them in hats. A plum or greengage would cost three shillings;
cherries and grapes about five, I believe, but this is at some of the
dearest shops.”
The fashion to which she refers was soon carried to excess; Hannah
More in her Diary says that she met women who had on their heads “an
acre and a half of shrubbery, besides slopes, grass-plats, tulip beds,
clumps of peonies, kitchen-gardens, and green-houses,” and she “had no
doubt that they held in great contempt our roseless heads and leafless
necks.”
“Some ladies carry on their heads a large quantity of fruit, and yet
they would despise a poor useful member of society who carried it there
for the purpose of selling it for bread.”
This fashion continued to increase until it was mimicked by Garrick,
who appeared on the stage with a mass of vegetables on his head, and a
large carrot hanging from each side, and ridicule killed the folly. It
seems quite certain that fashion, which never reached such grotesque
monstrosities as in the lifetime of Jane Austen, hardly touched, in
its extremer modes, herself and her sister, who kept to the simpler
styles with good taste. In fact the jest about the grocers shows that
Jane herself saw the humour of the thing even when living in the very
midst of it, a most unusual acuteness. She describes her own hat in the
same letter as being “A pretty hat,—a pretty style of hat too. It is
something like Eliza’s, only, instead of being all straw, half of it is
narrow purple ribbon,” which seems simple enough.
[Illustration: DRESSING TO GO OUT]
What one would like to get is some mental picture of Jane as she
appeared indoors and out of doors, and this is extremely difficult. In
the illustration “Dressing to go Out,” by Tomkins, we get some idea of
everyday fashions. The simple style of a plain material, with perhaps
a little spot or sprig upon it, of soft muslin, made with a flowing
skirt, and a chemisette folded in, and with sleeves reaching only to
the elbow, was doubtless the most ordinary kind of indoor dress for
women; add to this a cap, and this is as near as we can get to Jane’s
usual appearance. The caps, however, varied greatly, being worn both
indoors and also for driving. Mr Austen-Leigh remarks that Jane and
her sister took to wearing caps earlier in life than was generally
the custom, but, on the contrary, caps were worn by very young girls
at this period, for Mrs. Papendick says in her Journal, which is
contemporary, that no young girl of eighteen was seen in public without
some head-covering of this description. We learn many particulars of
the different kinds of cap worn by Jane from her own letters.
“I have made myself two or three caps to wear of evenings since I came
home, and they save me a world of torment as to hairdressing which at
present gives me no trouble beyond washing and brushing, for my long
hair is always plaited up out of sight, and my short hair curls well
enough to want no papering.”
“I took the liberty a few days ago of asking your black velvet bonnet
to lend me its caul, which it readily did, and by which I have been
enabled to give a considerable improvement of dignity to the cap,
which was before too _nidgetty_ to please me.... I still venture to
retain the narrow silver round it, put twice round without any bow, and
instead of the black military feather shall put in the coquelicot one
as being smarter, and besides coquelicot is to be all the fashion this
winter. After the ball I shall probably make it entirely black.”
“I am not to wear my white satin cap to-night after all; I am to wear a
mamalouc cap instead, which Charles Fowle sent to Mary, and which she
lends me. It is all the fashion now, worn at the opera, and by Lady
Mildmay at Hackwood balls.”
The word “mamalouc” was used at this time to describe many articles
of dress; it had come into fashion after Nelson’s great victory in
Egypt, and there were mamalouc cloaks as well as caps, but whether
these articles of attire bore the most distant resemblance to those
worn in Egypt, or whether the word was tacked on to them merely for
the purpose of advertisement, I do not know. Another cap Jane mentions
seems to have been much more pert: “Miss Hare had some pretty caps and
is to make me one like one of them, only white satin instead of blue.
It will be satin and lace and a little white flower perking out of the
left ear, like Harriot Byron’s feather. I have allowed her to go as far
as one pound sixteen.” “My cap has come home, and I like it very much,
Fanny has one also, hers is white sarsenet and lace, of a different
shape from mine, more fit for morning carriage wear, which is what it
is intended for, and is in shape exceedingly like our own satin and
lace of last winter, shaped round the face exactly like it, with pipes
and more fulness and a round crown inserted behind. My cap has a peak
in front. Large full bows of very narrow ribbon (old twopenny) are the
thing. One over the right temple perhaps, and another at the left ear.”
Some ladies used to hang at the back of their turban-like caps four
or five ostrich feathers of different colours. But apparently a bow
or a bit of ribbon sometimes was worn instead of a cap, and supposed
to represent it, just as a bit of wire and gauze a few years ago was
supposed to be a toque. In one place Jane says—
“I wore at the ball your favourite gown, a bit of muslin of the same
round my head bordered with Mrs. Cooper’s band, and one little comb.”
The fashion of caps for middle-aged ladies has so recently gone out
that it is well remembered, but the fashion of night-caps, which
belongs to a much older generation, seems to us now curious. They were
then an essential part of a wardrobe; Henry Bickersteth, afterwards
Lord Langdale, writes to his mother in 1800, “I must give you my thanks
for the supply of linen you have sent me; it was indeed seasonable, as
that which I had before was completely worn out. I am still obliged
to solicit some night-caps.” He was then only a boy of sixteen, and
the vision of all the boys in a school going to bed in night-caps is a
funny one.
Head-dresses reached their climax of absurdity at the end of the
eighteenth century, but the styles varied so much that almost everyone
could please themselves. At a famous trial only a few ladies were
dressed in the French taste. “All the rest, decked in the finest manner
with brocades, diamonds, and lace, had no other head-dress, but a
ribband tied to their hair, over which they wore a flat hat, adorned
with a variety of ornaments. It requires much observation to be able to
give full account of the great effect produced by this hat; it affords
the ladies who wear it that arch and roguish air, which the winged hat
gives to Mercury.” And Sir Walter Besant says: “The women wore hoods,
small caps, enormous hats, tiny milkmaid’s straw hats; hair in curls
and flat to the head; ‘pompoms,’ or huge structures two or three feet
high, with all kinds of decorations—ribbons, birds’ nests, ships,
carriages and waggons in gold and silver lace—in the erection.”
“Nothing can be conceived so absurd, extravagant, fantastical, as the
present mode of dressing the head. Simplicity and modesty are things
so much exploded, that the very names are no longer remembered. I have
just escaped from one of the most fashionable disfigurers; and though I
charged him to dress me with the greatest simplicity, and to have only
a very distant eye upon the fashion, just enough to avoid the pride
of singularity without running into ridiculous excess, yet in spite
of all these sage didactics, I absolutely blush at myself and turn to
the glass with as much caution as a vain beauty, just risen from the
small-pox, which cannot be a more disfiguring disease than the present
mode of dressing.” (H. More, 1775.)
But in 1787 a great change occurred in the mode of hair-dressing, the
huge cushions disappeared and the main part of the hair was gathered
together at the back in a chignon from which one or two loose curls
were allowed to escape.
The long feathers, which have already been commented on, varied in
number from three to one, and continued to be worn well on into the
nineteenth century. These feathers appeared in turbans, bonnets,
and head-dresses of all kinds, and hardly a picture of the period
representing ladies at a card-table does not show one or more of these
ludicrous quivering monstrosities.
Samuel Rogers says that he had been to Ranelagh in a coach with a lady
who was obliged to sit on a stool on the floor of the coach on account
of the height of her head-dress.
Fantastic headgear was not in Jane’s line, all the accounts of her hats
and bonnets are simple. “My mother has ordered a new bonnet and so have
I; both white strip trimmed with white ribbon. I find my straw bonnet
looking very much like other people’s and quite as smart. Bonnets of
cambric muslin are a good deal worn, and some of them are very pretty,
but I shall defer one of that sort until your arrival.”
In the last ten years of the century, poke bonnets and Dunstable hats
were much in evidence, and with flowing curls, and flowing ribbons
tied in a large bow under the chin, were sometimes not unbecoming to a
pretty face.
But in Jane’s lifetime the strangest fashion, that ever caused
discomfort to a whole nation, gradually died down, that is to say the
use of wigs. Yet that they were worn so late as 1814 is shown by Jane’s
remark in one of the letters. “My brother and Edward (his son) arrived
last night. Their business is about teeth and wigs.”
Nothing quickened the departure of the wig so much as the tax put on
hair powder by Pitt in 1785; people argued that they did not mind the
money, but they thought it so iniquitous to tax powder that they left
off wearing powdered wigs to spite the Government, and probably, once
having discovered the comfort of doing without these hideous evils,
they would never return to them. Yet that the wig, even in its heyday,
was not universally worn is shown by the fact that King George III.
himself refused to wear one. The king’s “hair, which is very thick, and
of the finest light colour, tied behind with a ribband, and dressed
by the hand of the queen, is one of his most striking ornaments.
Notwithstanding this, the peruke makers have presented an address to
the king, requesting His Majesty that, for the good of their body and
the nation, he would be pleased to wear a wig.” (Grosley.)
No one has given a better account of the wig than Sir Walter Besant,
he says: “The wig was a great leveller ... with the wig it mattered
nothing whether one was bald or not. Again the wig was a great
protection for the head; it saved the wearer from the effects of cold
draughts; it was part of the comfort of the age like the sash window
and the wainscoted wall. And the wig, too, like the coat and the
waistcoat, was a means of showing the wealth of its owner, because a
wig of the best kind, new, properly curled and combed, cost a large
sum of money. Practically it was indestructible, and with certain
alterations descended. First it was left by will to son or heir;
next it was given to the coachman; then, with alterations, to the
gardener; then it went to the second-hand people in Monmouth Street,
whence it continued a downward course until it finally entered upon
its last career of usefulness in the shoeblack’s box. There was lastly
an excellent reason why in the eighteenth century it was found more
convenient to wear a wig than the natural hair. Those of the lower
classes who were not in domestic service wore their own hair. Their
heads were filled with vermin—these vermin were very easily caught—now
the man who shaved his head and wore a wig was free of this danger.”
(_London in the Eighteenth Century._)
We know that Dr. Johnson’s wigs were a constant source of trouble,
for they were not only dirty and unkempt, but generally burnt away in
the front, for being very nearsighted, he often put his head into the
candle when poring over his books. Whenever he was staying with the
Thrales therefore the butler used to waylay him as he passed in to
dinner, and pull off the wig on his head, replacing it with a new one.
Ladies rarely appeared without head-dresses of some kind, be it only a
bow or an ornamental comb, they seemed to think that a woman should be
seen with her head covered in every place as well as in church. Near
the end of _Cecilia_ the flighty Lady Honoria cries, “‘Why you know sir
as to caps and wigs, they are very serious things, for we should look
mighty droll figures to go about bareheaded,’” which shows how entirely
custom dictates what appears “mighty droll” or quite ordinary.
Wigs were sometimes the cause of ludicrous incidents, as when in the
House of Commons Lord North suddenly rising from his seat and going out
bore off on the hilt of his sword the wig of Welbore Ellis who happened
to be stooping forward.
Many people, when wigs began to go out of fashion, powdered their own
hair, and of this Besant gives us also an unpleasant but speaking
picture: “Among the minor miseries of life is to be mentioned the
slipping and sliding of lumps of the powder and pomatum from the head
down to the plate at dinner.”
Even boys at school wore queues. Of a master at Eton it is said that
his management of the boys, excellent in other respects, was in some
things amiss, for “he burnt all their ruffles, and cut off their
queues.”
_The Times_ of April 14, 1795, mentions that: “A numerous club has been
formed in Lambeth called the Crop Club, every member of which, on his
entrance, is obliged to have his head docked as close as the Duke of
Bridgewater’s old bay coach horses. This assemblage is instituted for
the purpose of opposing, or rather evading, the tax on powdered heads.”
The use of powder is mentioned in Jane Austen’s story _The Watsons_,
and is one of the very few touches she gives that carry us backward in
time. Mrs. Robert Watson is speaking to her sisters-in-law, “‘I would
not make you wait,’ said she, ‘so I put on the first thing I met with.
I am afraid I am a sad figure. My dear Mr. W. (addressing her husband)
you have not put any fresh powder in your hair.’
“‘No, I do not intend it, I think there is powder enough in my hair for
my wife and sisters.’
“‘Indeed, you ought to make some alteration in your dress before dinner
when you are out visiting, though you do not at home.’
“‘Nonsense!’
“Dinner came, and except when Mrs. Robert looked at her husband’s head
she continued gay and flippant.”
Later, when Tom Musgrave arrives, “Robert Watson, stealing a view
of his own head in an opposite glass, said with equal civility, ‘You
cannot be more in deshabille than myself. We got here so late that I
had not time even to put a little fresh powder in my hair.’”
The powders used were very various.
“And now we are upon vanities, what do you think is the reigning mode
as to powder? only tumerick, that coarse dye that stains yellow. It
falls out of the hair and stains the skin so, that every pretty lady
must look as yellow as a crocus, which I suppose will come a better
compliment than as white as a lily.” (Mrs. Papendick.)
Flour was frequently used for powdering heads, and in 1795 flour was
very scarce and enormously valuable. In the same year when the powder
tax was passed, the Privy Council “implored all families to abjure
puddings and pies, and declared their own intention to have only
fish, meat, vegetables, and household bread, made partly of rye. It
was recommended that one quartern loaf per head per week should be a
maximum allowance. The loaf was to be brought on the table for each
to help himself, that none be wasted. The king himself had none but
household bread on his table. In 1801 the Government offered bounties
on the importation of all kinds of grain and flour, and passed the
Brown Bread Act (1800) forbidding the sale of wheaten bread, or new
bread of any kind, as stale bread would go further” (Mary Bateson in
_Social England_). This scarcity and dearness of bread is a thing never
felt in the present day, when lumps of the best white bread are flung
in heaps in the squares and streets of London, and disdained even by
tramps and beggars, and when boys in the North Country go round with
sacks begging bits of bread which they afterwards use for feeding
ponies or horses!
Many epigrams and _bon mots_ were made on the new powder tax; a tax on
dogs had at that time been generally expected, so one wit wrote—
“Full many a chance or dire mishap,
Ofttimes ‘twixt the lip and the cup is;
The tax that should have hung our dogs,
Excuses them, and falls on puppies.”
Of the inconveniences attending the use of powder the following
anecdote is an instance—
“At one of Lady Crewe’s dinner parties, Grattan, after talking very
delightfully for some time, all at once seemed disconcerted, and sunk
into silence. I asked his daughter, who was sitting next to me, the
reason of this. ‘Oh,’ she replied, ‘he has just found out that he has
come here in his powdering coat.’” (Samuel Rogers, _Table Talk_.)
The Act claimed one guinea a year from every user of powder, and was
calculated to bring in about £400,000 per annum. The Royal Family,
clergymen whose incomes were under a hundred pounds, subalterns and
all below that rank in the army, officers in the navy under the rank of
commander, and all below the two eldest unmarried daughters of a family
were exempt.
Walter Savage Landor was the first of undergraduates at Oxford to do
without powder, and was told he would be stoned for a republican.
“The regular academic costume, so late as 1799, consisted of knee
breeches of any colour, and white stockings. The sun of wigs had not
even then set; they covered the craniums of nearly all dons and heads
of houses. The gentlemen wore their hair tied up behind in a thin loop
called a pigtail; footmen wore their hair tied up behind in a thick
loop called a hoop.” (Sydney, _England and the English_.)
In regard to the rest of the costume of ladies, the most noticeable
points of the mode were the high waists and long flowing skirts
clinging tightly to the figure. This, if not carried to excess, was
certainly becoming, but fashion cannot be content with mediocrity,
it must be extravagant. Consequently, “With very low bodices and very
high waists, came very scanty clothing, with an absence of petticoat, a
fashion which left very little of the form to the imagination. I do not
say that our English belles went to the extent of some of their French
sisters, of having their muslin dresses put on damp—and holding them
tight to their figures till they dried—so as absolutely to mould them
to their form ... but their clothes were of the scantiest, and as year
succeeded year, this fashion developed, if one can call diminution of
clothing development.” (John Ashton, _Old Times_.)
It is difficult to give any consecutive account of fashions extending
over such a long period, for they varied as frequently then as they do
now, however, here are a few notes.
Coquelicot, that is poppy colour, was very fashionable, Jane as we have
seen adopted it; at one time no lady’s dress was considered complete
without a dash of coquelicot in sash or trimmings.
Jane frequently mentions her cloak; this would not be what ladies call
a cloak now, but more what would be described as a fichu or tippet,
covering the shoulders and having long ends which fell like a stole in
front, some of the modern fur stoles are in fact made very much on the
same pattern; no lady’s wardrobe seems to have been complete without
at least one black silk cloak of this sort. Dresses were cut low in
front, either in V shape or curved, and even in winter this custom was
followed; a silk handkerchief was sometimes folded crosswise over the
opening, but very generally, though warmly dressed in other respects,
a lady had her neck quite uncovered. The short sleeves which went with
low necks necessitated the use of long gloves, which reached above
the elbow and were tied there with ribbon. The high waists made the
bodice of the dress so small that it was of very little consequence,
and sometimes was formed merely by a folded bit of material like
a fichu. This was covered by that fashionable and characteristic
garment, the pelisse. It was not considered proper for very young girls
to wear pelisses, they wore cloaks, but the pelisse did not really
differ very greatly from the cloak, for it was like a long open coat,
fitting closely to the arm, but falling straight in long ends from
the armholes, thus leaving the front of the dress exposed in a panel;
later, pelisses became more voluminous and completely covered the
dress, fastening in front.
Mrs. Papendick says, “The outdoor equipment in those days, when
pelisses and great-coats of woollen were not worn by girls, was a black
cloak of a silk called ‘mode,’ stiff, glossy, wadded, armholes with a
sleeve to the wrist from them, a small muff, and a quaker-shaped bonnet
all of the same material.”
Huge muffs were very common, and this is one of the features of
the dress of that date which is generally remembered because of its
singularity.
The small girls were dressed in long skirts plainly made, and their
robes must have precluded any possibility of romping; the short skirts
and long stockinged legs of our present mode would have made them stare
indeed.
As for the materials for dresses, they were of course much less varied
than the inventions of printing and machinery allow women to use
nowadays. Plain muslins, or muslins embroidered at the edge, were most
common, though there were other materials such as taffeta, sarsenet,
and bombazine. We must realise also that any lace used in trimming
must have been real lace, there was no machine-made stuff at 2¾d.
a yard with which every servant girl could deck herself as she does
now. India muslins were extremely popular, and seemed to have been
worn quite regardless of the climate, which according to accounts, our
grandmothers notwithstanding, does not seem to have changed remarkably.
When Lady Newdigate was at Brighton in 1797 she writes to her husband:
“Do ask of your female croneys if they have any wants in the muslin
way. Nothing else is worn in gowns by any rank of people, but I don’t
know that I can get them cheaper here, but great choice there is, very
beautiful and real India.”
In January 1801, Jane writes from Steventon, “I shall want two new
coloured gowns for the summer, for my pink one will not do more than
clear me from Steventon. I shall not trouble you, however, to get more
than one of them, and that is to be a plain brown cambric muslin, for
morning wear; the other, which is to be a very pretty yellow and white
cloud, I mean to buy in Bath. Buy two brown ones, if you please, and
both of a length, but one longer than the other—it is for a tall woman.
Seven yards for my mother, seven yards and a half for me; a dark brown,
but the kind of brown is left to your own choice, and I had rather they
were different as it will be always something to say, to dispute about,
which is the prettiest. They must be cambric muslin.”
Ten years later muslins are still fashionable. “I am sorry to tell you
that I am getting very extravagant [she was at this time in London] and
spending all my money, and what is worse for you, I have been spending
all yours too; for in a linendraper’s shop to which I went for checked
muslin, and for which I was obliged to give seven shillings a yard, I
was tempted by a pretty coloured muslin and bought ten yards of it on
the chance of your liking it; but, at the same time, if it should not
suit you, you must not think yourself at all obliged to take it. It is
only three and six per yard, and I should not in the least mind taking
the whole. In texture it is just what we prefer, but its resemblance to
green crewels I must own is not great, for the pattern is a small red
spot.”
That silly and affected nomenclature for the dress fabrics was in use
then as it is still, is apparent from Hannah More’s remark, “One lady
asked what was the newest colour; the other answered that the most
truly fashionable silk was a _soupçon de vert_, lined with a _soupir
etouffée et bradée de l’espérance_; now you must not consult your
old-fashioned dictionary for the word _espérance_ for you will there
find that it means nothing but hope, whereas _espérance_ in the new
language of the time means rose-buds.”
The most particular description of a dress Jane ever gives is almost
minute enough to be followed by a dressmaker: “It is to be a round
gown, with a jacket and a frock front, to open at the side. The jacket
is all in one with the body, and comes as far as the pocket holes—about
half a quarter of a yard deep, I suppose, all the way round, cut off
straight at the corners with a broad hem. No fulness appears either in
the body or the flap, the back is quite plain—and the side equally so.
The front is sloped round to the bosom and drawn in, and there is to be
a frill of the same to put on occasionally when all one’s handkerchiefs
are dirty, which frill must fall back. She is to put two breadths and
a half in the tail, and no gores—gores not being so much worn as they
were. There is nothing new in the sleeves; they are to be plain, with
a fulness of the same falling down and gathered up underneath. Low in
the back behind, and a belt of the same.”
It is of course most obvious that the ludicrous fashions and enormous
erections, which were carried by the leaders of fashion, did not affect
quiet country girls; just as in our own time the distorted sleeves or
ever-changing skirts, and all the vagaries of the smart set, are known
and seen by hundreds who daily go about in perfectly simple clothes
which yet can not be called unfashionable because they conform in main
points to the dictates of the fashion of the moment without going to
excess.
Two more characteristic quotations from the letters must be given—
“How do you like your flounce? We have seen only plain flounces. I hope
you have not cut off the train of your bombazine. I cannot reconcile
myself to giving them up as morning gowns; they are so very sweet by
candlelight. I would rather sacrifice my blue one for that purpose; in
short I do not know, and I do not care,” and in the following year,
“I have determined to trim my lilac sarsenet with lilac satin ribbon
just as my chine crape is. Sixpenny width at bottom, threepenny or
fourpenny at top. Ribbon trimmings are all the fashion at Bath. With
this addition it will be a very useful gown, happy to go anywhere.”
In one small point the lady of the eighteenth century resembled her
successor of to-day.
_The Times_ of November 9, 1799, notes: “What is still more remarkable
is the total abjuration of the female pocket ... every fashionable fair
carries her purse in her workbag, and she has the pleasure of laying
everything that belongs to her upon the table wherever she goes.”
Hoops were worn in Court dress long after they were abandoned
elsewhere, someone describes them as the “excrescences and balconies
with which modern hoydens overwhelm and barricade their persons.” Apart
from this survival at Court, dress was generally long and clinging.
At one of the Drawing Rooms of 1796 crape was all the fashion; Princess
Augusta was dressed in “a rich gold embroidered crape petticoat in
leaves across, intersected with blue painted foil in shaded spots,
having the appearance of stripes from top to bottom; ornamented with
a rich embroidered border in festoons of blue shaded satin and gold
spangles. Pocket holes ornamented with broad gold lace, and blue
embroidered satin bows; white and gold body and train.” There are many
other costumes described at the same Drawing Room, from which we gather
that the hair was dressed very full and high, and quite off the ears,
and that bandeaus of gold or silver lace, or black velvet embroidered
with gold, were run through it. Gold and silver artificial flowers were
also very commonly worn, and some ladies had plumes. There were also a
few caps. “The ladies all wore full dress neckerchiefs with point lace,
sufficiently open to display irresistible charms.”
Men’s dress of the same period was most magnificent, and perhaps
the feature of it that would strike one most in contrast with modern
fashions, would be its variety of colour; coats and waistcoats were
always coloured, black was only donned for mourning. Gold and silver
lace and figured brocades, with lace cuffs and ruffles, were essential
to a beau. Horace Walpole notes at the wedding of a nephew that, except
for himself, there wasn’t a bit of gold lace anywhere in the dress of
the men, and he considered it altogether as a very poor affair.
A fairly good idea of the different degrees of plainness and ornament
in the clothes worn by gentlemen may be gathered from Reynold’s
portrait group of Inigo Jones, Hon. H. Fane, and C. Blair which was
done at this time.
The following is the wardrobe of a fashionable man of the time. “My
wardrobe consisted of five fashionable coats full mounted, two of
which were plain, one of cut velvet, one trimmed with gold, and another
with silver lace; two frocks, one of which was drab with large plate
buttons, the other of blue with gold binding; one waistcoat of gold
brocade, one of blue satin, embroidered with silver, one of green silk
trimmed with broad figured gold lace; one of black silk with fringes;
one of white satin, one of black cloth and one of scarlet; six pairs
of cloth breeches, one pair of crimson, and another of black velvet;
twelve pair of white silk stockings, as many of black silk, and the
same number of fine cotton; one hat laced with gold Point d’Espagne;
another with silver lace scalloped, a third gold binding, and a fourth
plain; three dozen of fine ruffled shirts, as many neckcloths; one
dozen of cambric handkerchiefs, and the like number of silk. A gold
watch with a chased case [it was the fashion to wear two watches at
one time during the century], two valuable diamond rings, two morning
swords, one with a silver handle, and a fourth cut steel inlaid with
gold; a diamond stock buckle and a set of stone buckles for the knees
and shoes; a pair of silver mounted pistols with rich housings; a
gold headed cane, and a snuff box of tortoiseshell, mounted with gold,
having the picture of a lady on the top.”
[Illustration: INIGO JONES, HON. H. FANE, AND C. BLAIR]
In _The New Guide_ already quoted, the following account is put into
the mouth of a young gentleman of fashion:—
“I ride in a chair with my hands in a muff,
And have bought a silk coat and embroidered the cuff.
But the weather was cold, and the coat it was thin,
So the tailor advised me to line it with skin.
But what with my Nivernois hat can compare,
Bag-wig, and laced ruffles, and black solitaire?
And what can a man of true fashion denote,
Like an ell of good ribbon tied under the throat?
My buckles and box are in exquisite taste,
The one is of paper, the other of paste.”
Fox, when a very young man, was a prodigious dandy, wearing a little
odd French hat, shoes with red heels, etc. He and Lord Carlisle
once travelled from Paris to Lyons for the express purpose of buying
waistcoats; and during the whole journey they talked about nothing
else. (S. Rogers, _Table Talk_.)
Jane Austen’s brother Edward would dress, as befitted his position,
with greater variety of colour and style than his clergyman father and
brother. It was the usual thing for a clergyman to dress in black, with
knee-breeches and white stock, but it was not essential. In _Northanger
Abbey_ when Henry Tilney is first introduced to Catherine in the Lower
Rooms at Bath, there is nothing in his attire to indicate that he is a
clergyman, a fact which she only learns subsequently.
In ordinary civilian dress, men wore long green, blue, or brown cloth
coats with stocks and frilled ruffles. In the _Man of Feeling_ a man
casually met with is wearing “a brownish coat with a narrow gold
edging, and his companion an old green frock with a buff coloured
waistcoat,” while an ex-footman trying to play the gentleman has on “a
white frock and a red laced waistcoat.”
At that time footgear for men consisted of slippers in the house,
and riding-boots for out of doors. When Beau Nash was forming the
assemblies at Bath, as has been said he made a dead set against
the habit some men had of wearing boots in the dancing-room. “The
gentlemen’s boots also made a very desperate stand against him, the
country squires were by no means submissive to his usurpations, and
probably his authority alone would never have carried him through, had
he not reinforced it with ridicule.” His ridicule took the form of a
squib, one verse of which was as follows:—
“Come Trollops and Slatterns,
Cockt hats and white aprons,
This best our modesty suits;
For why should not we
In dress be as free
As Hogs-Norton squires in boots.”
“The keenness, severity, and particularly the good rhymes of this
little _morceau_ which was at that time highly relished by many of
the nobility at Bath, gained him a temporary triumph. But to push his
victories he got up a puppet show, in which Punch came in, booted and
spurred in the character of a country squire. When told to pull off his
boots he replies:—’Why, madam, you may as well bid me pull off my legs.
I never go without boots, I never ride, I never dance without them; and
this piece of politeness is quite the thing in Bath. We always dance at
our town in boots, and the ladies often move minuets in riding boots.’
From this time few ventured to appear at the assemblies in Bath in
riding dress.” (_Life of Nash_, 1772.)