Chemise Post #8: The chemise gown in England
Originally published at Historical Personality Disorder. Please leave any comments there.
Paula Byrne, biographer of the actress Mary “Perdita” Robinson, writes: “On October 30, 1782, the Morning Herald reported that ‘The Perdita has received a dress from Paris, which was introduced this Autumn by the Queen of France, and has caused no small anxiety in the fashionable circles. It is totally calculated for the Opera, where it is expected to make its first appearance.’” A second dress of the same style had been sent along with this one to Marie-Antoinette’s other favorite Englishwoman, and Perdita’s frenemy on the society stage, Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire.
The dress in question was a chemise à la reine, and so began England’s enduring fascination with the scandalous cotton frock. However, where it was unambiguously associated with the queen and symbolic of her unqueenly attitude, in England it was early on dubbed “the Perdita chemise.” Historians in the recent past have asserted that it was the Duchess of Devonshire who put the chemise on the fashion map, but Byrne points to an obvious reluctance on Georgiana’s part to embrace the chemise gown as a public style until Perdita had put it so squarely in the minds of the fashionable elite that she was forced to embrace it or seem out of fashion.
While no portrait of Mary Robinson exists showing her wearing the chemise, the written record of the time was all about either the dashing and elegant figure she cut wearing it, or the ridiculous appearance of the women who attempted to copy her. Several artists active in the London social scene at the time painted various sitters in the chemise gown, most prominently, George Romney.
Mrs. John Matthews, George Romney, 1786.
Mrs. Blackburn, George Romney, 1787.
Mrs. Crouch, George Romney, 1787.
Lady Lemon, George Romney, 1788.
Mrs. Mark Currie, George Romney, 1789.
Tomorrow we’ll look at a painting by Romney’s contemporary, Joshua Reynolds, and examine the sitter’s relationship to the chemise gown and her own scandalous history.
