Amelia Rauser’s The Age of Undress
In yesterday’s mail, a new book that will hit stores on St. Patrick’s Day, 17 March 2020: The Age of Undress: Art, Fashion, and the Classical Ideal in the 1790s, by Amelia Rauser (Yale University Press).
216 pages; 180 color illustrations
We’ve all seen the sheer muslin gowns – marveled over the audacity of such ‘nakedness’ – and laughed at the “cartoons” Gillray, Cruickshank, or Dent produced that ridiculed the latest fashion extreme. Rauser brings together portraits and sculpture, cartoons and fashion plates to pose questions and reveal answers about the relationship between Neoclassicism, Hellenistic ideals of the sculpted female form, and fashion trends that quickly surged (and subsided) in such fashion-forward places as Naples, Paris, and London, in the 1790s.
Very welcome is the concentration on a small timeline, an in-depth exploration of clothing seen (and probably worn) by the mothers and maternal aunts of my diarists, Mary Gosling and Emma Smith (also known by their married names: Lady Smith and Emma Austen Leigh), my Two Teens in the Time of Austen. This “parent generation,” the four Erle Stoke Sisters and their friends, were single women and young marrieds in the very time period Rauser discusses.
A full review in the near future.
Regency Fashion, L.A. Style
TESSA, the Digital Collection of the Los Angeles Public Library, has FASHION PLATES!
Included are many from the likes of Ackerman’s [sic] Repository, British Lady’s Magazine, Columbian Magazine, Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine and oh so many more. These last two have images from the 1840s and 1860s; slightly earlier is Le Follet Courrier des Salons. Even Godey’s is represented. Averaging 50 images per page, there are 125 pages to display! Even Lady’s Magazine (subject of yesterday’s post) has some ‘contenders’ (though hard to winnow out, given that its very name is part of several other magazine names; note they sometimes search successfully using ladies).
http://tessa.lapl.org/cdm/search/collection/fashion
Once on the website, clicking gets you a description of the plate, and will take you to the online viewer. You can zoom in & out, using the guides near the top; you can also download high-resolution images (bottom of page).
The above is from 1808 (The Lady’s Magazine) and described as,
Morning & ball dresses. The woman on the left wears a yellow tunic over an empire waist white round gown. She also carries a pink shawl and wears a white headband adorned with pink flowers. The woman on the right wears a purple coat trimmed in yellow over a white empire waist round gown with high collar. She also wears a purple turban with yellow plume and carries a large white fur muff adorned with a purple bow.
There is a particularly “pinkish” quality to the paper of the plates that gives them a certain soft charm, since the ladies are sometimes less “winsome” than those of Ackermann or Heideloff.
- NB: see Heideloff in Penelope Byrde’s excellent book JANE AUSTEN FASHION: Fashion and Needlework in the Works of Jane Austen.
- Read about the Ann Frankland Lewis watercolors – then “visit” them at LACMA
A note-to-self project is to collate the plate links at TESSA with the magazines (i.e., Ackermann’s, La Belle Assemblée, and The Lady’s Magazine) from which they came. These at TESSA are by far suprior in the quality of image (and sometimes the books scans don’t even include the plates).
Here’s a sampling, grouped by year (note spellings):
1806 (lots of La Belle Assemblee)
1807 (several from Lady’s Magazine, Ladies’ Museum, others)
1808 (lots of Ladies’ Museum & Lady’s Magazine)
1809 (Ackerman (sic) well represented
1810 (many magazines, including Ladies (sic) Magazine)
1811 (lotta Ackerman)
1812 (includes Ladies (sic) Magazine, Mirror of Fashions)
1813 (lotta La Belle Assemblee)
1814 (ALL La Belle Assemblee)
1815 (several titles)
1816 (ditto)
Fashion: the R. Crompton Rhodes collection
A “digital” collection based on the fashion plates once collected by Raymond Crompton Rhodes, and now at the Library of Birmingham.
The lady pictured above is from 1803 – she is believed to have been published in the Lady’s Monthly Museum for September 1803. So there are a nice variety of periodicals, including such popular titles as La Belle Assemblée, The Lady’s Magazine, Bell’s Court Magazine.
Included in the collection:
- Macaroni prints, 1773-1777
- Female Fashion, 1803-1901
- Male Fashion, 1840-1870
- Children’s Fashions, 1829-1893
- Leisure wear, 1807-1891
- a short biography of Crompton Rhodes
Ann Lewis fecit
Hopefully you can read the artist’s signature: Ann Lewis facit, in this 1802 drawing. Alas! although the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (or LACMA) owns these DELIGHTFUL fashion plate paintings by Ann Frankland Lewis, they are, sadly, NOT ON DISPLAY!
So the next best thing is a cyber visit to Dames a la Mode – where the many works of Miss Lewis can be enjoyed over two pages.
Surely based on existing fashion plates, Ann Lewis’ drawings are colorful and wonderful, and have (obviously) given costumers some great ideas.
LACMA has only one image, and woefully LITTLE information on the artist, or their holdings. If anyone reading this knows more – please say! Two Nerdy History Girls has a lovely little write-up.
- June 2018 UPDATE: there are 32 images online. You can even make a “book” of these LACMA images for yourself.
As a group they evidently date from 1774 to 1807. The BLUE dress (above) dates from 1803. And this ‘head’ from 1806.
Now, if only the museum would put these items on display – or in a special exhibit!
Recreating Austen’s Silk Pelisse
It’s been a LONG time since I’ve read as fascinating an article as Hilary Davidson’s “Reconstructing Jane Austen’s Silk Pelisse, 1812-1814” (available thru her Academia.edu account)
Originally published in Costume (vol. 49, no. 2, 2015), her uploaded articles includes all the illustrations under discussion in the article, and is a thorough piece of investigative writing. Taking into consideration not only the Jane Austen provenance (a indelicately-worded letter helped cast the shadow…), but also insights into construction and sewing, cost and “fashion”, the article should interest readers who want more information on
- Jane Austen
- Regency fashion
- English fashion & textiles
- costume construction
- conservation & recreation strategies for museum pieces
And a TON of other topics. In short, HIGHLY recommended!
Seen only in photographs, I’ve never been super impressed with the Austen garment. After reading about it in a fair amount of depth – it perhaps does suffer “age and infirmity”. It just looks so crumpled.
Their reproduction, reinstating some closures the original must have had (but doesn’t any more), has a much greater stiffness – and is well served by a tall, exceptionally-thin young woman.
The Austen Pelisse is considered in conjunction with several theoretical and actual garments – including Barbara Johnson’s excellent “book” of fabrics and fashions (reproduced in commercial book form as A Lady of Fashion) and a lovely garment from the V&A.
_I_ was quite surprised to see that the original garment has been sewn using “nine stitches to the inch” – which seemed a surprisingly low number (when hand-quilting and piecing is considered…; a reason I used to stay away from hand-sewing or quilting!).
And how interesting to read about the shift in costs: in Austen’s day the labor was nothing… nowadays a greater consideration. But, read the chart (p. 217) and you will see along with me how pitiful the wages of someone making less than 8 shillings! (For, unless you owned the business, the money did not go solely to the sewer — rather like a car mechanic today [ie, expensive labor rates!].) £300 was the labor cost for their replica. A far cry from the 2008 “equivalent” of 8 shillings: £20.
I don’t know what else to say about this incredibly-informative article – other than: READ IT for yourself.
Mirror of Fashion
In transcribing diaries of Emma’s great aunt (Mrs Smith of Bersted Lodge), I have been dying to track down some of her fashion images. While I’m not quite convinced I’ve stumbled upon the source (I’ve yet to find her exact image), I’ve found some quite evocative images from the magazine The Ladies’ Museum, specifically in their column (with, typically, two fashion plates) “THE MIRROR OF FASHION“.
First up is a rather late entry, from 1831. Some of these gowns I can see Mary and Emma wearing; though, Mary would perhaps never recapture the fashionable figure she cut before Charles’ death (January 1831). And Emma, though interested in fashion to some degree, as the young bride of a clergyman she doesn’t seem to have overspent on herself.
“The Mirror of Fashion” will gain its own page, so be on the lookout for more in the near future.
For now: here is mirror of fashion_1831.
UPDATE: here’s its permanent page.
Fashion News, Regency-Style
In today’s mail a copy of A Lady of Fashion: Barbara Johnson’s Album of Styles and Fabrics; this is a book LONG on my wish list and I finally broke down and obtained a copy. In wonderful shape! Can’t wait to have a sit down, drink a cup of tea, and really look and read.
For those unfamiliar with Barbara Johnson, her album is at the Victoria & Albert Museum – a great favorite with me when in London. They do have an online look at the album, into which Barbara pasted and pinned fashion plates and actual fabric samples for clothing she had made up:
This page shows some of Barbara’s descriptions, fabrics and pictures. I talked about this book way back in 2008!
Sabina at Kleidung um 1800 shared some wonder “fan-cheers” about the book – I’ll see if she’d mind my posting them. She has a unique view on the book, given you interest in costume. You will find a project “to die-for”: Sabine has been working on an 1806 Spencer worn by Queen Luise of Prussia. Just FAB-U-LOUS!
Colonial Williamsburg has a useful site containing fashion plates.
More about Barbara Johnson’s Album at Barbara Brackman’s Material Culture blogspot.
Regency History has fashion plates from La Belle Assemblée.
See the list of Ackermann’s Repository of Arts here on Two Teens in the Time of Austen.
Portrait Miniatures to give you added incentive can be found at Ellison Fine Art.
Regency Costume Fashion Plates
Sabine — who’s excellent blog, Kleidungum1800, 
you just must check out! — has unearthed a terrific series of fashion plates on Flikr. I took a quick peep at just one – a collection of 99 photos (wow!) from 1803-1804, or, as the collection comes from the Bibliothèque des Arts Décoratifs, when dealing with those that are French plates: from the Year 12. (Dear Napoleon!)
As you can see from the little screen shot (right), the plates include fashions for both men and women.
The page claims it’s “A Work In Progress” – and what work it all entails! Plans for the beginning uploads include fashions from 1800-1820, as well as the American Civil War period (c1855-64).
We owe a debt to user “Nuranar”. Thank you, Danke, Merci!
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I can see the Two Elizas (Eliza Chute & Eliza Gosling) being interested in this little number,
they did so love reading the Letters of Mme de Sévigné (en français)!
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Mary and Emma would have use for either of these beauties,
especially if the evening included one of Mrs Gosling’s balls
Jane Austen Fashion on Guernsey
While searching online for mentions of “Le Marchant” I found this wonderful “cyber display” by the Priaulx Library – a favorite source of mine, as, yes, my Le Marchant family has Guernsey connections. The letters are a delight to savor, and the fashion plates will delight all Jane Austen fans.
Begin corresponding with Miss Caroline Guille Le Marchant by clicking here.
Jane Austen Fashion: What Emma & Mary Wore?
When working on a book about the period 1815-17 — the teen years of a woman who ultimately marries into the Austen family — an important concern is to envision not only what my girls looked like but also the fashions they might have been wearing. The most extensive description Emma provides is of the court dress her mother and eldest sister wear when young Augusta was presented in 1817. Yet these girls undoubtedly were interested in fashion, and I like to think of them as looking over the very same Fashion Plates I find in Ackermann’s:
Described as an “Evening Dress,” this delicate creation is a design of Mrs. Bean of Albemarle-street. “This lady, since her visit to Paris, has incorporated in her dresses, in the style of French costume, all that is to be admired in the exuberant varieties which that country produces; and has moderated the same by a fancy governed by a chaste feeling peculiar to herself.”
The fashion plate’s original description is tantalizing: “A celestial blue crape frock, over a white satin slip, ornamented round the bottom with a deep border of tull or net lace, embroidered with shaded blue silks and chenille; short full sleeve, trimmed with tull or net lace; the dress trimmed entirely round the top, to correspond…. Slippers of blue satin or kid. White gloves of French kid.” Her jewelry is “Necklace of pearl; ear-drops and bracelets to correspond.”
The girl herself comes under discussion: “Hair parted in the centre of the forehead, confined in the Grecian style, and blended with flowers.”
Young Augusta was attending concerts and plays in 1815; I can imagine her in just such a dress. Will have to look through the letters and diaries to see if anyone made any mention of Mrs. Bean. Will update if I find anything!!
I’m interested in anything anyone might be able to tell about Mrs. Bean!
The Jane Austen Centre (Bath, England) has a nice description of another Mrs. Bean creation, written by Candice Hern.
Find all Ackermann’s Repository of Art volumes (from Internet Archive) on this blog.
Two Teens in the Time of Austen 