Costume Squee (Regency period)
Random Note: I totally blame h_johanna! (So so can you!)
So I was doing some research for a (female) character living in early 19th century France and wanted to know what she'd be wearing. To my great surprise and after some google-fu I didn't end up with corsets and big skirts. No, it turns out that from about 1795 and 1820 was the measly 30 years in a period of several centuries that girls weren't forced in too tight corsets, skirts that are so big they're more than anything. They style they dressed in is called regency fashion and the defining feature was the 'empire waist' just under the breasts.
I've been obsessing over this for more than 2 weeks now and it shows no promise of coming to an end any time soon so you get to hear lots of squee! ^__^ A bit of a summary of what I found out on the subject.
This post is pretty picture heavy.
A bit of historic context
Between 1789 and 1799 was the time of the French revolution. The people of France were sick of people ruling them just on account of who they'd been born to and wanted competent leaders instead and so they got rid of the French noblety where they could. That's not the long and the short of it but it's what it came down to. Off with their heads!
In 1799 Napoleon took the throne and saw fashion as a way to stimulate the French economy. He encouraged the production of fine fabrics within France and forbid any woman from wearing the same dress to court twice. He also had some of the fireplaces boarded up in an effort to force people to wear more clothing. Along with the fact that women of stature changed dress at least three times a day (morning/in-house dresses, middag dresses and evening/ball gowns) and these people didn't have much of a choice but to spend a LOT of money on clothes. Napoleon's wife, empress Josephine, has been rumored to possess several hundred dresses, 558 pairs of white silk stockings, 520 pairs of shoes (she never wore a pair but once), 500 lace trimmed chemises, 252 hats, and 400 shawls. She spent 3,000 francs a year for rouge and thousands more for perfumes, but she had only two flannel petticoats and two pairs of drawers.
Napoleon also forbade import from England(which England wasn't particularly pleased with, you can imagine), which was going through the industrial revolution, with the mechanical creation of fabric as one of the earliest to industrialize and thus the English could create fabric much more cheaply (although it also wasn't up to the quality of the French, handmade fabric). Between 1803 and 1814 the British and French waged war (as they were wont to do, with at least 12 known wars preceding this one... French people still refuse to speak English at least partially as a result of that old feud) and the English and French fashion went its separate ways, but after the war was over the English quickly adapted to the French again, only for fashion to evolve in the direction of English fashion anyway.
After Napoleon lost in Russia and was banished in 1815 the regency fashion declined quickly. In 1818 the waist began to drop drastically and skirts widened and corsets tightened. Around 1825 fashion was once more defined by hoop skirts and corsets. No surprise as the king that followed Napoleon was a brother of the king that had been beheaded during the revolution and thus tradition was once more taken up (although the skirts now had huge butts rather than hips, I noticed *amused* Have a funny cartoon from the 1850's)
Greek and Roman times as inspiration
Getting rid of noblety also meant that people started to rebel against the fashion standards set by the noblety. After centuries of powdered wigs, white faces and red lips and dresses made of thick rich fabric were now much more widely available than they had been in the beginning. One could say they had become somewhat mainstream.
This is why designers from about 1790-1795 looked for other sources to inspire them. They found it in the ancient Greek and Roman society which became a point of reference not only in fashion but on many other fronts as well. At this time the Greek and Romans were thought to have worn white clothes of thin fabric.
As a result regency dresses, especially the early regency dresses (1795 to 1805, lasting longer in France than in England, which went a different path during the war) were made from thin white or off-white fabrics such as muslin (a very thin, fine cotton) and very simple in its form. The muslin was so thin that it was almost see-though. Many people were scandalized by that at first, because you could see the girls' 'underwear' (Ooooh how shameful). Underwear still consisted of an under-dress/Chemise, short corset/short stays and petticoat over the ankles... But yes, scandalous, scandalous. The fabric was often made to look more beautiful by embroidery or had a pattern woven into it.
Later in the regency period other fabrics began to be used in different colors, but muslin stayed favorite for a long time.
Natural shape and colour
The other source of inspiration was the female form in itself. After the unrealistic
silhouettes, hair and make up of the preceding centuries, people wanted to look natural (that didn't mean women didn't wear make up, they were just less obvious about it).
The full corset that was designed to achieve a wasp-waist was forsaken and instead short corsets or short stays were introduced that could be seen as the early versions as our modern bra's. The waist of the dresses was high (it fell just under the breasts and was called empire waist after the reign of Napoleon as emperor of France) and the skirts a lot less big than in the preceding era, although especially in the early versions it was still rather wide. It was worn over only one or two petticoats though, as opposed to the layers and layers of petticoats and the wooden, bone or iron constructions women wore under their skirts before. Later the skirts got more and more tight until they were almost columnar, only to grow wider again after about 1815. Around this time skirts began to get more and more ruffles as well.
The most revealing part of the dresses was definitely low cut décolleté. Some women went a little too far but in general the cut of the neckline would be fairly decent in our terms. You can imagine though, that what's decent for us was throughly indecent for the people of the 1700's. Often the underdress would end slightly lower than the muslin overdress, hinting at a little bit of skin and a deeper décolleté than was actually the case. For during the midday (half dress) women had chemisettes, mock blauses that reached only just over the breasts to cover the décolleté. The morning dresses (undress) lacked this low cut or, for the matter, the fashionable short sleeves.
The natural look also meant that women and girls of the higher classes were allowed to go outside, exercise, play and move around for the first time in centuries. While freckles and a tan were still frowned upon, a healthy flush was appreciated. Personal hygiene took a flight and women wore their hair in their natural colour, often in a bun, bound up with a shawl, under hats, turbans and bonnets but with artful loose stands that had been curled after the curls that the Greek and Roman statues spotted.
Accessories
Women often wore big woven shawls over their dresses. This was both fashionable and a way to keep warm. The shawls were worn around the shoulders and often reached to or over the knees on both sides. They were made of cashmere and woven in the Middle East. Napoleon took them back from his military ventured in the orient and later they were also created in England and France, but those were of far lesser quality. In paintings from before that time you often see simpler shawls in only one colour or no shawl at all.
Women wore white and lace gloves that reached to over the elbows but were worn rumpled up on the wrists and underarms. From what I've been able to discern in paintings, women wore very little to no jewelry in the early regency. Later on, the hats, bonnets and turbans became so extravagant that jewelry was hardly needed, although that, too, was worn again. They did use a lot of ribbons and such.
Women had elaborately decorated fans which played a big part in bodylanguage (for your amusement: Scroll down a bit for a guide on fan-language http://austentation.com/history/fans.html It's hilarious and so awesome... Shame no one knows it these days or you could have a lot of fun with it) and carried parasols. Reticules were little pouches that one could use to carry money, letters, hand mirrors and whatever else struck your fancy and were needed since the gowns didn't leave room for pockets. I still haven't figured out how they were fastened to the dress, but they were useful, that's for sure.
Fun facts
- Undress (worn in morning) covered more and was thicker clothing than half dress (worn in afternoon and early evening) which was in turn less revealing and thicker than full dress (worn in the later evening at formal events and parties)
- In 1783 Marie-Antoinette (queen of France) caused quite the scandal by wearing a muslin dress in a painting. The dress wasn't even half as revealing as what women would wear not 15 years later.
- Women were encouraged to play the harp as it showed off their arms and hands in the best manner.
- Kids finally got an own model of clothes rather than miniature versions of their parent's clothes and were encouraged to play as that promoted a healthy body and thus beauty.
- Contrary to women, some men did wear corsets in the regency!
- Young women later in the regency would change their underclothes to enhance the 'natural' look... In other words, they tried to look as naked as possible under their muslin gowns. They also played with different colors and enhancements.
- Wearing a white gown was a sign of stature because it meant you could afford to get it dirty.
- Because of Jane Austen, most fashion pages focus on English fashion rather than French, while France was actually the leading fashion country.
- Women in the Netherlands stayed laced and most didn't wear regency dresses. Women in the US wore them later than in Europe and the form of the regency dress is basically what I've seen in civil war re-enactment clothing, which takes place later in the 19th century.
Alright, I guess that's it for now... Not that this post isn't long enough as it is (it's huge! I admire anyone who managed to read all of it). Here's a list of the websites I took most of my information from. I can't usually remember what comes from which, but these were the most informative.
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1795%E2%80%931820_in_fashion Shouldn't wiki be the startingpoint of any venture on any subject? :P A clear and very good overview.
- http://www.fashion-era.com/regency_fashion.htm Another great overview of regency fashion and its development. Follow the link at the top to a page on regency accessories.
- http://tidenstoej.natmus.dk/periode1/dragt.asp?ID=6 Danish museum collection with historical dresses and menswear, press Næste (under the year) for the next picture and the tumbnails for costume details and additional images and paintings
- http://austentation.com/history/jewelry.html A page on all the accessories a women in regency times couldn't do without. Basically anything except for the overdresses itself are discussed.
- http://www.songsmyth.com/images.html Another one of those pages on just about everything, but with more interesting details on shoes, hair and hats.
- http://hibiscus-sinensis.com/regency/ All kinds of interesting details on regency England, which - as far as fashion is concerned - can often be generalized to France
- http://www.sensibility.com/mainpage.htm The page is mostly directed at selling patterns and sewing period costumes but it has a great links section and gallery with images from the regency. This is were I ended up patterns for my regency dress, including one for underwear (Like you hadn't figured out I was going to make one)
So I was doing some research for a (female) character living in early 19th century France and wanted to know what she'd be wearing. To my great surprise and after some google-fu I didn't end up with corsets and big skirts. No, it turns out that from about 1795 and 1820 was the measly 30 years in a period of several centuries that girls weren't forced in too tight corsets, skirts that are so big they're more than anything. They style they dressed in is called regency fashion and the defining feature was the 'empire waist' just under the breasts.
I've been obsessing over this for more than 2 weeks now and it shows no promise of coming to an end any time soon so you get to hear lots of squee! ^__^ A bit of a summary of what I found out on the subject.
This post is pretty picture heavy.
A bit of historic context
Between 1789 and 1799 was the time of the French revolution. The people of France were sick of people ruling them just on account of who they'd been born to and wanted competent leaders instead and so they got rid of the French noblety where they could. That's not the long and the short of it but it's what it came down to. Off with their heads!
In 1799 Napoleon took the throne and saw fashion as a way to stimulate the French economy. He encouraged the production of fine fabrics within France and forbid any woman from wearing the same dress to court twice. He also had some of the fireplaces boarded up in an effort to force people to wear more clothing. Along with the fact that women of stature changed dress at least three times a day (morning/in-house dresses, middag dresses and evening/ball gowns) and these people didn't have much of a choice but to spend a LOT of money on clothes. Napoleon's wife, empress Josephine, has been rumored to possess several hundred dresses, 558 pairs of white silk stockings, 520 pairs of shoes (she never wore a pair but once), 500 lace trimmed chemises, 252 hats, and 400 shawls. She spent 3,000 francs a year for rouge and thousands more for perfumes, but she had only two flannel petticoats and two pairs of drawers.
Napoleon also forbade import from England(which England wasn't particularly pleased with, you can imagine), which was going through the industrial revolution, with the mechanical creation of fabric as one of the earliest to industrialize and thus the English could create fabric much more cheaply (although it also wasn't up to the quality of the French, handmade fabric). Between 1803 and 1814 the British and French waged war (as they were wont to do, with at least 12 known wars preceding this one... French people still refuse to speak English at least partially as a result of that old feud) and the English and French fashion went its separate ways, but after the war was over the English quickly adapted to the French again, only for fashion to evolve in the direction of English fashion anyway.
After Napoleon lost in Russia and was banished in 1815 the regency fashion declined quickly. In 1818 the waist began to drop drastically and skirts widened and corsets tightened. Around 1825 fashion was once more defined by hoop skirts and corsets. No surprise as the king that followed Napoleon was a brother of the king that had been beheaded during the revolution and thus tradition was once more taken up (although the skirts now had huge butts rather than hips, I noticed *amused* Have a funny cartoon from the 1850's)
Greek and Roman times as inspiration
Getting rid of noblety also meant that people started to rebel against the fashion standards set by the noblety. After centuries of powdered wigs, white faces and red lips and dresses made of thick rich fabric were now much more widely available than they had been in the beginning. One could say they had become somewhat mainstream.
This is why designers from about 1790-1795 looked for other sources to inspire them. They found it in the ancient Greek and Roman society which became a point of reference not only in fashion but on many other fronts as well. At this time the Greek and Romans were thought to have worn white clothes of thin fabric.
As a result regency dresses, especially the early regency dresses (1795 to 1805, lasting longer in France than in England, which went a different path during the war) were made from thin white or off-white fabrics such as muslin (a very thin, fine cotton) and very simple in its form. The muslin was so thin that it was almost see-though. Many people were scandalized by that at first, because you could see the girls' 'underwear' (Ooooh how shameful). Underwear still consisted of an under-dress/Chemise, short corset/short stays and petticoat over the ankles... But yes, scandalous, scandalous. The fabric was often made to look more beautiful by embroidery or had a pattern woven into it.
Later in the regency period other fabrics began to be used in different colors, but muslin stayed favorite for a long time.
Natural shape and colour
The other source of inspiration was the female form in itself. After the unrealistic
silhouettes, hair and make up of the preceding centuries, people wanted to look natural (that didn't mean women didn't wear make up, they were just less obvious about it).
The full corset that was designed to achieve a wasp-waist was forsaken and instead short corsets or short stays were introduced that could be seen as the early versions as our modern bra's. The waist of the dresses was high (it fell just under the breasts and was called empire waist after the reign of Napoleon as emperor of France) and the skirts a lot less big than in the preceding era, although especially in the early versions it was still rather wide. It was worn over only one or two petticoats though, as opposed to the layers and layers of petticoats and the wooden, bone or iron constructions women wore under their skirts before. Later the skirts got more and more tight until they were almost columnar, only to grow wider again after about 1815. Around this time skirts began to get more and more ruffles as well.
The most revealing part of the dresses was definitely low cut décolleté. Some women went a little too far but in general the cut of the neckline would be fairly decent in our terms. You can imagine though, that what's decent for us was throughly indecent for the people of the 1700's. Often the underdress would end slightly lower than the muslin overdress, hinting at a little bit of skin and a deeper décolleté than was actually the case. For during the midday (half dress) women had chemisettes, mock blauses that reached only just over the breasts to cover the décolleté. The morning dresses (undress) lacked this low cut or, for the matter, the fashionable short sleeves.
The natural look also meant that women and girls of the higher classes were allowed to go outside, exercise, play and move around for the first time in centuries. While freckles and a tan were still frowned upon, a healthy flush was appreciated. Personal hygiene took a flight and women wore their hair in their natural colour, often in a bun, bound up with a shawl, under hats, turbans and bonnets but with artful loose stands that had been curled after the curls that the Greek and Roman statues spotted.
Accessories
Women often wore big woven shawls over their dresses. This was both fashionable and a way to keep warm. The shawls were worn around the shoulders and often reached to or over the knees on both sides. They were made of cashmere and woven in the Middle East. Napoleon took them back from his military ventured in the orient and later they were also created in England and France, but those were of far lesser quality. In paintings from before that time you often see simpler shawls in only one colour or no shawl at all.
Women wore white and lace gloves that reached to over the elbows but were worn rumpled up on the wrists and underarms. From what I've been able to discern in paintings, women wore very little to no jewelry in the early regency. Later on, the hats, bonnets and turbans became so extravagant that jewelry was hardly needed, although that, too, was worn again. They did use a lot of ribbons and such.
Women had elaborately decorated fans which played a big part in bodylanguage (for your amusement: Scroll down a bit for a guide on fan-language http://austentation.com/history/fans.html It's hilarious and so awesome... Shame no one knows it these days or you could have a lot of fun with it) and carried parasols. Reticules were little pouches that one could use to carry money, letters, hand mirrors and whatever else struck your fancy and were needed since the gowns didn't leave room for pockets. I still haven't figured out how they were fastened to the dress, but they were useful, that's for sure.
Fun facts
- Undress (worn in morning) covered more and was thicker clothing than half dress (worn in afternoon and early evening) which was in turn less revealing and thicker than full dress (worn in the later evening at formal events and parties)
- In 1783 Marie-Antoinette (queen of France) caused quite the scandal by wearing a muslin dress in a painting. The dress wasn't even half as revealing as what women would wear not 15 years later.
- Women were encouraged to play the harp as it showed off their arms and hands in the best manner.
- Kids finally got an own model of clothes rather than miniature versions of their parent's clothes and were encouraged to play as that promoted a healthy body and thus beauty.
- Contrary to women, some men did wear corsets in the regency!
- Young women later in the regency would change their underclothes to enhance the 'natural' look... In other words, they tried to look as naked as possible under their muslin gowns. They also played with different colors and enhancements.
- Wearing a white gown was a sign of stature because it meant you could afford to get it dirty.
- Because of Jane Austen, most fashion pages focus on English fashion rather than French, while France was actually the leading fashion country.
- Women in the Netherlands stayed laced and most didn't wear regency dresses. Women in the US wore them later than in Europe and the form of the regency dress is basically what I've seen in civil war re-enactment clothing, which takes place later in the 19th century.
Alright, I guess that's it for now... Not that this post isn't long enough as it is (it's huge! I admire anyone who managed to read all of it). Here's a list of the websites I took most of my information from. I can't usually remember what comes from which, but these were the most informative.
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1795%E2%80%931820_in_fashion Shouldn't wiki be the startingpoint of any venture on any subject? :P A clear and very good overview.
- http://www.fashion-era.com/regency_fashion.htm Another great overview of regency fashion and its development. Follow the link at the top to a page on regency accessories.
- http://tidenstoej.natmus.dk/periode1/dragt.asp?ID=6 Danish museum collection with historical dresses and menswear, press Næste (under the year) for the next picture and the tumbnails for costume details and additional images and paintings
- http://austentation.com/history/jewelry.html A page on all the accessories a women in regency times couldn't do without. Basically anything except for the overdresses itself are discussed.
- http://www.songsmyth.com/images.html Another one of those pages on just about everything, but with more interesting details on shoes, hair and hats.
- http://hibiscus-sinensis.com/regency/ All kinds of interesting details on regency England, which - as far as fashion is concerned - can often be generalized to France
- http://www.sensibility.com/mainpage.htm The page is mostly directed at selling patterns and sewing period costumes but it has a great links section and gallery with images from the regency. This is were I ended up patterns for my regency dress, including one for underwear (Like you hadn't figured out I was going to make one)