Fashion In The Time Of Jane Austen (9 page)

The Graces in a Storm
(Gillray,
c
. 1810). Caricaturists of the day were fascinated by the sartorial accidents that could befall the fashionable lady and produced numerous prints where, betrayed by their finery, ladies revealed more than they wanted to.

In 1804 the
Chester Chronicle
noted that ‘drawers of light pink [are] now the ton among our darling belles’, but many women resisted wearing them until much later. They were adopted by Parisian ladies after the French Revolution, whose Grecian gowns were so accurate that the diaphanous fabric was barely joined at the sides, frequently opening to reveal the legs. Few English ladies went so far, but they too had moments of near nudity.
The Times
wrote:

Despite the call for all things au naturel, there were various falsies available to embellish nature’s gifts. To wax lyrical about wax bosoms
The Oracle
wrote in 1800:

These ‘bosom friends’ had to be fitted, and a description in
The True Briton
in 1800 recorded how a father was horrified when returning home he found a very smart young man with his hands all over his fourteen-year-old daughter, only to be told by his wife, ‘the man is only fitting Euphrasia with a proper bosom; the girl cannot appear in fashionable company with her present horrid flatness of chest.’

Stockings did not climb much above the knee and were secured beneath it with garters, sometimes knitted, like those Jane Fairfax made for her grandmother in
Emma
. Garters were usually ribbons tied or buckled, but by the end of the eighteenth century, dentist Martin Van Butchell invented the ‘spring garter’ using the springs he had developed for false teeth, but they were expensive at 30 shillings a pair.

Jane was particular about her stockings, writing in October 1800, ‘I like the stockings also very much, and greatly prefer having two pair only of that quality to three of an inferior sort’. In 1811 she bought silk stockings for 12 shillings a pair at the fashionable London store Grafton House and wrote that she was pleased with them despite the indignity of having to wait half an hour to be served. The quality of cotton stockings was hugely improved by developments in industrial processes (especially Arkwright’s machines, which allowed for cotton to be spun extremely finely) and by 1822 fine cotton stockings were universal except for wear with silk gowns. W. Gardiner recalled in 1838 in the first volume of
Music and Friends
that ‘No articles were so highly esteemed as English ladies’ cotton stockings. Their peculiar whiteness and fineness recommended them as preferable to silk, and they sold for higher prices.’ The Empress Josephine insisted that her stockings were ordered from England despite the war.

Good-Bye Till This Evening
(La Mésangère
c
.1800
).
Visible beneath her raised skirt are her delicate slippers and white stockings with embroidered clocks at the ankle.

Ladies wore stockings with decorative embroidered clocks at their ankles, which in response to the ballet slipper style shoe became larger, decorating the instep within the ‘V’ of the low front of the shoe. Lace inserts were added to the clocks, which were embroidered around by the process of ‘chevening’ – a form of subtle embroidery – sometimes using contrasting colours to create designs often featuring crowns, trees or flowers.

Stockings were usually white or black for mourning, but colours were beginning to appear, as the
Chester Chronicle
reports with some disapproval in 1803: ‘the only sign of modesty in the present dress of the ladies is the pink dye in their stockings, which makes their legs appear to blush for the total absence of petticoats’. Stockings worn with walking dresses were usually of a heavier weight and from 1802 appeared in brown, grey, or olive with yellow clocks.

Le Bon Genre
,
c
.1810. Emma is told in
The Watsons
, ‘nothing sets off a neat ankle more than a half boot; Nankin galoshed with black looks very well’. She replied that ‘unless they are so stout as to injure their beauty, they are not fit for Country walking.’

Gentlemen largely wore tall military style boots for day and casual wear, but for ‘full dress’ occasions shoes were worn with white silk stockings with decorative clocks. These now had latchets to be laced over the instep with two pairs of holes, but were often made of delicate kid leather and very low cut. Little boys’ shoes followed suit being increasingly low cut to become very similar to the ballet-slipper style shoes of their sisters and mothers.

Women’s shoes came in a variety of fabrics as well as leather and were often made to match a particular gown. Many colours were available, usually pastel. In October 1800 Jane had new shoes: ‘The pink shoes are not particularly beautiful, but they fit me very well’, and in
Sanditon
Mr Parker exclaims: ‘Blue Shoes and Nankin boots! ... There was no blue Shoe when we passed this way a month ago … Glorious indeed!’ Boots ranged from ankle to mid-calf and were frequently made of satin or kid leather but Nankin boots were made from a tough yellowy-brown cotton fabric, with a galosh section of black leather around the base of the foot, joined to the sole to keep the damp and mud out.

In the 1790s shoes with pointed toes and little heels were popular; some from Italy were almost as slender as stilettos. Heels rarely exceeded 2 inches in the arched wedge and were lower in the true wedge, but had dwindled to nothing by the 1820s. Most had some form of additional decoration – ruching, lace, or a pierced design to reveal a contrasting colour beneath. These were known as sandals, as were those that laced with ribbons that tied around the ankle, ballerina style.

Blue silk embroidered shoes and reticule,
c
. 1790s. The pretty netted and embroidered reticule with matching blue silk shoes came from the estate of Jane’s brother Edward Austen Knight but it is unknown if they were worn by Jane or were embroidered by her for another family member.

‘Straights’ had been worn by both genders since the advent of the heel in 1600, but with the return to virtually flat shoes it was easier to make designated lefts and rights. Men – especially those with military duties – were eager to adopt them, but women were less keen because, as straights were alternated between the feet each time they were worn, they kept a nice symmetrical look. For a lady a dainty small foot was an asset, especially once the waltz became popular in 1816 and hems began to rise.

Shoe making was also a popular pastime: ‘there was hardly a lady’s work table that was not covered in shoemaker’s tools’, the Hon Mrs Calvert noted in her
Souvenirs
for 1808. ‘I begin a new science today – shoemaking. It is all the fashion. I had a master with me for two hours.’ And as Jane wrote to Anna her niece in 1814, ‘your Grandmamma desires me to say that she will have finished your Shoes tomorrow & thinks they will look very well.’

The beautiful Madame Recamier (Francois Gerard,
c
. 1800) using her expensive shawl to add luxury and sensuality to a very simple muslin gown. Fashionable ladies were spoken of as being ‘well draped’ rather than well dressed, and in Paris there were those like Madame Gardel, performer of the shawl dance, who would give instruction in the graces of the shawl.

S
LENDER DIAPHANOUS DRESSES
meant that there was now nowhere for pockets, and the ‘reticule’ – or ‘ridicule’ as it was christened by the satirists – was born along with a coterie of new accessories. These details added interest to a simple gown and their exotic nature spoke of the wealth, connections and taste necessary to procure them, whilst the delicate movements necessary to handle them helped to display a woman’s pretty plump arms and dainty hands.

At most points in the preceding centuries skirts had been capacious enough to be able to accommodate small bags or separate ‘pockets’ tucked away within the folds, but the slender lines and diaphanous muslins of the 1800s rendered them redundant. Clearly ladies could not simply carry their possessions, and on the suggestion that Athenian ladies had once transported their possessions in small decorative bags, the reticule became the ‘must have’ accessory of 1800.

Muffs had grown in size when gowns grew narrower as though the soft bulk of a fur or swansdown muff drew favourable comparison to the slender silhouette. White swansdown was de rigueur for evening, whilst richer and warmer fur or sealskin would match fur-trimmed pelisses and cloaks by day. The capacious size made them handy for concealing private items like billetsdoux, and it is likely that they were used to carry various personal items even if not sanctioned to do so.

The natural antecedent to the reticule was the knotting bag which, ostensibly to carry the accoutrements for the fashionable hobby, became something of a display item in the 1790s. It provided a pretty showcase for the ladies’ knotting and needlework talents – which Mr Bingley in
Pride and Prejudice
considered a great female accomplishment – and as Lady Mary Coke noted as early as 1769: ‘she had a knotting-bag, embroidered, hanging to her arm – “tho indeed” said she “I never knott, but the bag is convenient for one’s gloves and Fan.”’

In 1799
The Times
reported ‘the total abjuration of the female pocket… every fashionable fair carries her purse in her work-bag’. With the addition of longer handles and having been renamed ‘indispensables’, reticules were also featured in November that year in a fashion plate in
The Gallery of Fashion
. In France the knotting association was immortalised in the name, derived from
reticulum
(the Latin for ‘net’). ‘Reticule’ took over as the fashionable name probably because of the glamorous classical motifs of the Parisian reticules made of cardboard or lacquered tin in the shape of Grecian urns suitable for the most elegant priestess.