Fashion In The Time Of Jane Austen (12 page)

Early nineteenthcentury fans. Carved
brisé
fans were hugely popular, as were paper or silk fans with neoclassical motifs.

Jane refers to her white fan in her letters but ivory fans remained the most usual, possibly because they were also used as dance fans to make a note of the names of dance partners. This is most likely what William is doing ‘working away his partner’s fan as if for life’ at the ball in
Mansfield Park
. Little jewellery was worn with the
style à l’anglaise
but watches began to be worn suspended from the waistline, men adding a fob on the opposite side to create symmetry. The French Revolution caused many ladies to get rid of their jewels in a desperate attempt to avoid
la guillotine
, their diamonds replaced with neoclassical pearls, amethysts and cameos. These they wore literally from head to foot – from their classically inspired tiaras, golden girdles, and slave bangles to the rings on their toes.

‘Carriage Dress’ (
Ackermann’s Repository
, January 1810). The erminetrimmed cape and matching cap would be snug for travelling and the watch pinned at her elevated waistline would help her keep track of the time!

Madame de Pompadour had carved her own cameos, but for those less talented and less wealthy Josiah Wedgewood created a method for making porcelain cameos. The passion for cameos inspired a flood of neoclassical jewellery that drew inspiration from all parts of the ancient world as dictated by the latest discoveries at Herculaneum, Pompeii, and after the Nile campaign, Egypt.

The topaz crosses given to Jane and Cassandra by their brother Charles.

In 1800 the
Morning Post
declared amethyst and topaz to be ‘preferable to all others’ for necklaces and earrings. It was perfect then, that in May 1801 Jane wrote to tell Cassandra that their brother Charles ‘has been buying gold chains and topaze crosses for us; - he must be well scolded’. She must have been pleased because she commemorated the occasion by having Fanny Price receive a topaz cross from her brother William in similar circumstances. Unlike Charles, William did not supply a chain (at first Fanny wore the cross on a ribbon) but Mary Crawford gives her a gold chain ‘prettily worked’. These gold chains made a less costly alternative to strings of pearls, which were fashionably draped between cameos at the girdle and bust-line.

Queen Louise Augusta of Prussia
(Vigée Le Brun, 1802). In 1805 the
Journal des Dames
wrote: ‘a fashionable lady wears cameos at her girdle, cameos in her necklace, cameos on each of her bracelets, a cameo on her tiara. The antique stones are more fashionable than ever, but in default of them one may employ engraved shells.’

In
La Nouvelle Héloïse
, Rousseau had glorified sentiment and virtue, and advocated sentimental jewellery over artificial finery, especially for day wear. There were brooches painted with ladies weeping over tombstones surrounded by willow trees, parures of ivy leaves and owls for remembrance, or snakes for eternity. Hair work was a more literal way of commemorating the departed, with bracelets or watch chains woven from the hair of the deceased, or strands to form entwined initials sealed under crystal. Only the most extreme wore one of their teeth as a tie pin!

One of the greatest beauties of the age, Margaret, Countess of Blessington (Sir Thomas Lawrence, 1822).

J
ANE AUSTEN
visited Carlton House on 13 November 1815 when the Prince Regent gave her the honour of allowing her to dedicate her latest novel
Emma
to him. She must have given considerable thought to what she wore that day but unfortunately did not discuss it in her letters. The librarian of Carlton House, the Reverend James Stanier Clarke greeted her with due ceremony as a fellow author and gave her a tour of the Prince’s extravagant home. It seems she made quite an impression on him as they struck up a relationship via letter. He also painted a watercolour of her in his ‘Friendship Book’ depicting her wearing a white muslin gown with a stole-like cloak of black with red, a matching hat of black velvet with red trim, red shoes and brown fur muff. Jane was less impressed, ambivalent about how she should dedicate the work, and very disapproving of the Prince’s excessively lavish lifestyle, especially at a time when the country was plunged into recession.

Her thoughts would be echoed by many others before the end of the decade. The ‘age of elegance’ was slipping away; in 1816 Byron left England in disgrace, Beau Brummell fled to France to escape his debts, and Jane Austen became increasingly ill with what is thought to have been Addison’s disease. The royal wedding on 2 May 1816 saw all hopes rest on Princess Charlotte, the plump and happy girl who pleased the nation by preferring only English gowns. She also enjoyed Jane’s works, particularly
Sense and Sensibility
, saying:

Revolution had changed the world and fashion had dressed it accordingly. The war had been the main impetus for the last twenty-three years, introducing new ideas and new cultures, each reflected in what was worn. The textile industry had been affected exponentially, developing new processes to provide fashions that had formerly been imported, and to supply massive orders for military uniforms, but the cost to the workforce had been high. Despite proving England’s pre-eminence, the post-Waterloo attitude was one of dour sobriety for all except the Prince’s court. They partied on, unaffected by the small groups of heroes, once splendid, their red or blue now ragged, who were left begging by the roadside by the authorities who refused to pay the wages that were owed to them for years of service.

Portrait of Jane Austen by the Reverend James Stanier Clarke from his ‘Friendship Book’ painted in 1815 after they met on her visit to Carlton House.

Aristocratic and genteel ladies set up societies to raise money for Waterloo widows and the Waterloo wounded, but gone were the days when beautiful political patrons would have been able to exert a little influence directly. Men and women were becoming polarised: once men had realised the comfort and camaraderie of their own company they were less keen to adopt the ‘full dress’ and fine manners necessary for female society. Women lost any freedoms they may have gained with the rise of evangelicalism and sentimentality, when it was remembered that women were ‘inherently sinful’ and the only way they could redeem themselves was through a life of modesty, sobriety, charity and silence.

Carlton House as it was in about 1808.