Part 20

It will be noticed that, for ceremony, the periwig gave place to the tie-wig, or, in some few cases, to natural hair curled and powdered. The older men kept to the periwig no doubt from fondness of the old and, as they thought, more grave fashion; but, as I showed at the beginning of the chapter, the beau and the young man, even the quite middle-class man, wore, or had the choice of wearing, endless varieties of false attires of hair.

The sporting man had his own idea of dress, even as to-day he has a piquant idea in clothes, and who shall say he has not the right? A black wig, a jockey cap with a bow at the back of it, a very resplendent morning gown richly laced, a morning cap, and very comfortable embroidered slippers, such mixtures of clothes in his wardrobe--his coat, no doubt, a little over-full, but of good cloth, his fine clothes rather over-embroidered, his tie-wig often pushed too far back on his forehead, and so showing his cropped hair underneath.

Muffs must be remembered, as every dandy carried a muff in winter, some big, others grotesquely small. Bath must be remembered, and the great Beau Nash in the famous Pump-Room--as Thackeray says, so say I: 'I should like to have seen the Folly,' he says, meaning Nash. 'It was a splendid embroidered, beruffled, snuff-boxed, red-heeled, impertinent Folly, and knew how to make itself respected. I should like to have seen that noble old madcap Peterborough in his boots (he actually had the audacity to walk about Bath in boots!), with his blue ribbon and stars, and a cabbage under each arm, and a chicken in his hand, which he had been cheapening for his dinner.'

It was the fashion to wear new clothes on the Queen's birthday, March 1, and then the streets noted the loyal people who indulged their extravagance or pushed a new fashion on that day.

Do not forget that no hard-and-fast rules can be laid down; a man's a man for all his tailor tells him he is a walking fashion plate. Those who liked short cuffs wore them, those who did not care for solitaires did without; the height of a heel, the breadth of a buckle, the sweep of a skirt, all lay at the taste of the owner--merely would I have you remember the essentials.

[Illustration: {A man of the time of George II.; four styles of hair for men}]

There was a deal of dressing up--the King, bless you, in a Turkish array at a masque--the day of the Corydon and Sylvia: mock shepherd, dainty shepherdess was here; my lord in silk loose coat with paste buttons, fringed waistcoat, little three-cornered hat under his arm, and a pastoral staff between his fingers, a crook covered with cherry and blue ribbons; and my lady in such a hoop of sprigged silk or some such stuff, the tiniest of straw hat on her head, high heels tapping the ground, all a-shepherding--what? Cupids, I suppose, little Dresden loves, little comfit-box jokes, little spiteful remarks about the Germans.

[Illustration: {1745: Two men of the time of George II.; 1758: Three men of the time of George II.}]

Come, let me doff my Kevenhuller hat with the gold fringe, bring my red heels together with a smart tap, bow, with my hand on the third button of my coat from which my stick dangles, and let me introduce the ladies.

THE WOMEN

I will introduce the fair, painted, powdered, patched, perfumed sex (though this would do for man or woman of the great world then) by some lines from the _Bath Guide_:

'Bring, O bring thy essence-pot, Amber, musk, and bergamot; Eau de chipre, eau de luce, Sanspareil, and citron juice.

* * * * *

In a band-box is contained Painted lawns, and chequered shades, Crape that's worn by love-lorn maids, Watered tabbies, flowered brocades; Straw-built hats, and bonnets green, Catgut, gauzes, tippets, ruffs; Fans and hoods, and feathered muffs, Stomachers, and Paris nets, Earrings, necklaces, aigrets, Fringes, blouses, and mignionets; Fine vermillion for the cheek, Velvet patches a la grecque. Come, but don't forget the gloves, Which, with all the smiling loves, Venus caught young Cupid picking From the tender breast of chicken.'

[Illustration: A WOMAN OF THE TIME OF GEORGE II. (1727-1760)

She is wearing a large pinner over her dress. Notice the large panniers, the sleeves without cuffs, the tied cap, and the shortness of the skirts.]

[Illustration: {Three women of the time of George II.}]

Now I think it will be best to describe a lady of quality. In the first years of the reign she still wears the large hoop skirt, a circular whalebone arrangement started at the waist, and, at intervals, the hoops were placed so that the petticoat stood out all round like a bell; over this the skirt hung stiff and solemn. The bodice was tight-laced, cut square in front where the neckerchief of linen or lace made the edge soft. The sleeves still retained the cuff covering the elbow, and the under-sleeve of linen with lace frills came half-way down the forearm, leaving bare arm and wrist to show.

[Illustration: {Four women of the time of George II.}]

Over the skirt she would wear, as her taste held her, a long, plain apron, or a long, tucked apron, or an apron to her knees. The bodice generally formed the top of a gown, which gown was very full-skirted, and was divided so as to hang back behind the dress, showing, often, very little in front. This will be seen clearly in the illustrations.

The hair is very tightly gathered up behind, twisted into a small knob on the top of the head, and either drawn straight back from the forehead or parted in the middle, allowing a small fringe to hang on the temples. Nearly every woman wore a small cap or a small round straw hat with a ribbon round it.

The lady's shoes would be high-heeled and pointed-toed, with a little buckle and strap.

About the middle of the reign the sacque became the general town fashion, the sacque being so named on account of the back, which fell from the shoulders into wide, loose folds over the hooped petticoat. The sacque was gathered at the back in close pleats, which fell open over the skirt part of this dress. The front of the sacque was sometimes open, sometimes made tight in the bodice.

[Illustration: {A woman of the time of George II.; four types of shoe}]

Now the lady would puff her hair at the sides and powder it; if she had no hair she wore false, and a little later a full wig. She would now often discard her neat cap and wear a veil behind her back, over her hair, and falling over her shoulders.

In 1748, so they say, and so I believe to be true, the King, walking in the Mall, saw the Duchess of Bedford riding in a blue riding-habit with white silk facings--this would be a man's skirted coat, double-breasted, a cravat, a three-corned hat, and a full blue skirt. He admired her dress so much and thought it so neat that he straightway ordered that the officers of the navy, who, until now, had worn scarlet, should take this coat for the model of their new uniform. So did the navy go into blue and white.

The poorer classes were not, of course, dressed in hooped skirts, but the bodice and gown over the petticoat, the apron, and the turned back cuff to the short sleeve were worn by all. The orange wench laced her gown neatly, and wore a white cloth tied over her head; about her shoulders she wore a kerchief of white, and often a plain frill of linen at her elbows. There were blue canvas, striped dimity, flannel, and ticken for the humble; for the rich, lustrings, satins, Padesois, velvets, damasks, fans and Leghorn hats, bands of Valenciennes and Point de Dunquerque--these might be bought of Mrs. Holt, whose card Hogarth engraved, at the Two Olive Posts in the Broad part of the Strand.

[Illustration: {Two women of the time of George II.}]

Seventeen hundred and fifty-five saw the one-horse chairs introduced from France, called cabriolets, the first of our own extraordinary wild-looking conveyances contrived for the minimum of comfort and the maximum of danger. This invention captivated the hearts of both men and women. The men painted cabriolets on their waistcoats, they embroidered them on their stockings, they cut them out in black silk and patched their cheeks with them, horse and all; the women began to take up, a little later, the cabriolet caps with round sides like linen wheels, and later still, at the very end of the reign, there began a craze for such head-dresses--post-chaises, chairs and chairmen, even waggons, and this craze grew and grew, and hair grew--in wigs--to meet the cry for hair and straw men-of-war, for loads of hay, for birds of paradise, for goodness knows what forms of utter absurdity, all of which I put down to the introduction of the cab.

I think that I can best describe the lady of this day as a swollen, skirted figure with a pinched waist, little head of hair, or tiny cap, developing into a loose sacque-backed figure still whaleboned out, with hair puffed at the sides and powdered, getting ready to develop again into a queer figure under a tower of hair, but that waits for the next reign.

One cannot do better than go to Hogarth's prints and pictures--wonderful records of this time--one picture especially, 'Taste in High Life,' being a fine record of the clothes of 1742; here you will see the panier and the sacque, the monstrous muff, the huge hoop, the long-tailed wig, the black boy and the monkey. In the 'Noon' of the 'Four Parts of the Day' there are clothes again satirized.

[Illustration: {A woman of the time of George II.; a shawl}]

I am trusting that the drawings will supply what my words have failed to picture, and I again--for the twenty-first time--repeat that, given the cut and the idea of the time, the student has always to realize that there can be no hard-and-fast rule about the fashions; with the shape he can take liberties up to the points shown, with colour he can do anything--patterns of the materials are obtainable, and Hogarth will give anything required in detail.

GEORGE THE THIRD

Reigned sixty years: 1760-1820.

Born 1738. Married, 1761, Charlotte Sophia of Mecklenburg-Strelitz.

THE MEN AND WOMEN

Throughout this long reign the changes of costume are so frequent, so varied, and so jumbled together, that any precise account of them would be impossible. I have endeavoured to give a leading example of most kind of styles in the budget of drawings which goes with this chapter.

Details concerning this reign are so numerous: Fashion books, fashion articles in the _London Magazine_, the _St. James's Chronicle_, works innumerable on hair-dressing, tailors' patterns--these are easily within the reach of those who hunt the second-hand shops, or are within reasonable distance of a library.

[Illustration: A MAN OF THE TIME OF GEORGE III. (1760-1820)

The full-skirted coat, though still worn, has given way, in general, to the tail-coat. The waistcoat is much shorter. Black silk knee-breeches and stockings are very general.]

Following my drawings, you will see in the first the ordinary wig, skirted coat, knee-breeches, chapeau-bras, cravat or waistcoat, of the man about town. I do not mean of the exquisite about town, but, if you will take it kindly, just such clothes as you or I might have worn.

[Illustration: {Eleven types of head-dress for women; three types of shoe}]

In the second drawing we see a fashionable man, who might have strutted past the first fellow in the Park. His hair is dressed in a twisted roll; he wears a tight-brimmed little hat, a frogged coat, a fringed waistcoat, striped breeches, and buckled shoes.

In the third we see the dress of a Macaroni. On his absurd wig he wears a little Nevernoise hat; his cravat is tied in a bow; his breeches are loose, and beribboned at the knee. Many of these Macaronis wore coloured strings at the knee of their breeches, but the fashion died away when Jack Rann, 'Sixteen String Jack,' as he was called after this fashion, had been hung in this make of breeches.

In number four we see the development of the tail-coat and the high-buttoned waistcoat. The tail-coat is, of course, son to the frock-coat, the skirts of which, being inconvenient for riding, had first been buttoned back and then cut back to give more play.

[Illustration: A WOMAN OF THE TIME OF GEORGE III. (1760-1820)

In the earlier half of the reign. Notice her sack dress over a satin dress, and the white, elaborately made skirt. Also the big cap and the curls of white wig.]

In the fifth drawing we see the double-breasted cut-away coat.

Number six is but a further tail-coat design.

Number seven shows how different were the styles at one time. Indeed, except for the Macaroni and other extreme fashions, the entire budget of men as shown might have formed a crowd in the Park on one day about twenty years before the end of the reign. There would not be much powdered hair after 1795, but a few examples would remain.

A distinct change is shown in the eighth drawing of the long-tailed, full coat, the broad hat, the hair powdered, but not tied.

Number nine is another example of the same style.

The tenth drawing shows the kind of hat we associate with Napoleon, and, in fact, very Napoleonic garments.

In eleven we have a distinct change in the appearance of English dress. The gentleman is a Zebra, and is so-called from his striped clothes. He is, of course, in the extreme of fashion, which did not last for long; but it shows a tendency towards later Georgian appearance--the top-hat, the shorter hair, the larger neckcloth, the pantaloons--forerunners of Brummell's invention--the open sleeve.

[Illustration: {Fourteen styles of hair and hats for men}]

[Illustration: A MAN OF THE TIME OF GEORGE III. (1760-1820)

The cuffs have gone, and now the sleeve is left unbuttoned at the wrist. The coat is long and full-skirted, but not stiffened. The cravat is loosely tied, and the frilled ends stick out. These frills were, in the end, made on the shirt, and were called chitterlings.]

Number twelve shows us an ordinary gentleman in a coat and waistcoat, with square flaps, called dog's ears.

As the drawings continue you can see that the dress became more and more simple, more like modern evening dress as to the coats, more like modern stiff fashion about the neck.

The drawings of the women's dresses should also speak for themselves. You may watch the growth of the wig and the decline of the hoop--I trust with ease. You may see those towers of hair of which there are so many stories. Those masses of meal and stuffing, powder and pomatum, the dressing of which took many hours. Those piles of decorated, perfumed, reeking mess, by which a lady could show her fancy for the navy by balancing a straw ship on her head, for sport by showing a coach, for gardening by a regular bed of flowers. Heads which were only dressed, perhaps, once in three weeks, and were then rescented because it was necessary. Monstrous germ-gatherers of horse-hair, hemp-wool, and powder, laid on in a paste, the cleaning of which is too awful to give in full detail. 'Three weeks,' says my lady's hairdresser, 'is as long as a head can go well in the summer without being opened.'

[Illustration: {1772: A woman of the time of George III.; two types of hat; 1775: A woman of the time of George III.; 1794: A woman of the time of George III.}]

[Illustration: A WOMAN OF THE TIME OF GEORGE III. (1760-1820)

This shows the last of the pannier dresses, which gave way in 1794 or 1795 to Empire dresses. A change came over all dress after the Revolution.]

Then we go on to the absurd idea which came over womankind that it was most becoming to look like a pouter pigeon. She took to a buffon, a gauze or fine linen kerchief, which stuck out pigeon-like in front, giving an exaggerated bosom to those who wore it. With this fashion of 1786 came the broad-brimmed hat.

Travel a little further and you have the mob cap.

All of a sudden out go hoops, full skirts, high hair, powder, buffons, broad-brimmed hats, patches, high-heeled shoes, and in come willowy figures and thin, nearly transparent dresses, turbans, low shoes, straight fringes.

I am going to give a chapter from a fashion book, to show you how impossible it is to deal with the vagaries of fashion in the next reign, and if I chose to occupy the space, I could give a similar chapter to make the confusion of this reign more confounded.

DRAWINGS TO ILLUSTRATE THE COSTUME OF THE REIGN OF GEORGE THE THIRD

THE FIRST FORTY-EIGHT DRAWINGS BY THE AUTHOR, AND THE REMAINING TWELVE BY THE DIGHTONS, FATHER AND SON

[Illustration: {Four men}]

[Illustration: {Five men}]

[Illustration: {Four men}]

[Illustration: {Four men}]

[Illustration: {Four men and a boy}]

[Illustration: {A man and three women}]

[Illustration: {Four women}]

[Illustration: {Four women}]

[Illustration: {Four women}]

[Illustration: {Four women}]

[Illustration: {Four women}]

[Illustration: {Four women}]

[Illustration: The King.]

[Illustration: The Navy.]

[Illustration: The Army.]

[Illustration: Pensioners.]

[Illustration: The Church.]

[Illustration: The Law.]

[Illustration: The Stage.]

[Illustration: The Universities.]

[Illustration: The Country.]

[Illustration: The Duke of Norfolk.]

[Illustration: The City.]

[Illustration: The Duke of Queensberry.]

GEORGE THE FOURTH

Reigned ten years: 1820-1830.

Born 1762. Married, 1795, Caroline of Brunswick.

Out of the many fashion books of this time I have chosen, from a little brown book in front of me, a description of the fashions for ladies during one part of 1827. It will serve to show how mere man, blundering on the many complexities of the feminine passion for dress--I was going to say clothes--may find himself left amid a froth of frills, high and dry, except for a whiff of spray, standing in his unromantic garments on the shore of the great world of gauze and gussets, while the most noodle-headed girl sails gracefully away upon the high seas to pirate some new device of the Devil or Paris.

Our wives--bless them!--occasionally treat us to a few bewildering terms, hoping by their gossamer knowledge to present to our gaze a mental picture of a new, adorable, ardently desired--hat. Perhaps those nine proverbial tailors who go to make the one proverbial man, least of his sex, might, by a strenuous effort, confine the history of clothes during this reign into a compact literature of forty volumes. It would be indecent, as undecorous as the advertisements in ladies' papers, to attempt to fathom the language of the man who endeavoured to read the monumental effigy to the vanity of human desire for adornment. But is it adornment?

Nowadays to be dressed well is not always the same thing as to be well dressed. Often it is far from it. The question of modern clothes is one of great perplexity. It seems that what is beauty one year may be the abomination of desolation the next, because the trick of that beauty has become common property. You puff your hair at the sides, you are in the true sanctum of the mode; you puff your hair at the sides, you are for ever utterly cast out as one having no understanding. I shall not attempt to explain it: it passes beyond the realms of explanation into the pure air of Truth. The Truth is simple. Aristocracy being no longer real, but only a cult, one is afraid of one's servants. Your servant puffs her hair at the sides, and, hang it! she becomes exactly like an aristocrat. Our servant having dropped her _g's_ for many years as well as her _h's_, it behoved us to pronounce our _g's_ and our _h's_. Our servants having learned our English, it became necessary for us to drop our _g's_; we seem at present unwilling in the matter of the _h_, but that will come.

To cut the cackle and come to the clothes-horse, let me say that the bunglement of clothes which passes all comprehension in King George IV.'s reign is best explained by my cuttings from the book of one who apparently knew. Let the older writer have his, or her, fling in his, or her, words.

'CUROSY REMARKS ON THE LAST NEW FASHIONS.

'The City of London is now, indeed, most splendid in its buildings and extent; London is carried into the country; but never was it more deserted.

'A very, very few years ago, and during the summer, the dresses of the wives and daughters of our opulent tradesmen would furnish subjects for the investigators of fashion.

'Now, if those who chance to remain in London take a day's excursion of about eight or ten miles distance from the Metropolis, they hear the innkeepers deprecating the steamboats, by which they declare they are almost ruined: on Sundays, which would sometimes bring them the clear profits of ten or twenty pounds, they now scarce produce ten shillings.

'No; those of the middle class belonging to _Cockney Island_ must leave town, though the days are short, and even getting cold and comfortless; the steamboats carrying them off by shoals to Margate and its vicinity.

'The pursuit after elegant and superior modes of dress must carry us farther; it is now from the rural retirement of the country seats belonging to the noble and wealthy that we must collect them.

'Young ladies wear their hair well arranged, but not quite with the simplicity that prevailed last month; during the warmth of the summer months, the braids across the forehead were certainly the best; but now, when neither in fear of heat or damp, the curls again appear in numerous clusters round the face; and some young ladies, who seem to place their chief pride in a fine head of hair, have such a multitude of small ringlets that give to what is a natural charm all the _poodle-like_ appearance of a wig.

'The bows of hair are elevated on the summit of the head, and confined by a comb of tortoise-shell.

'Caps of the cornette kind are much in fashion, made of blond, and ornamented with flowers, or puffs of coloured gauze; most of the cornettes are small, and tie under the chin, with a bow on one side, of white satin ribbon; those which have ribbons or gauze lappets floating loose have them much shorter than formerly.

'A few dress hats have been seen at dinner-parties and musical amateur meetings in the country, of transparent white crape, ornamented with a small elegant bouquet of marabones.

'When these dress hats are of coloured crape, they are generally ornamented with flowers of the same tint as the hat, in preference to feathers.

'Printed muslins and chintzes are still very much worn in the morning walks, with handsome sashes, having three ends depending down each side, not much beyond the hips. With one of these dresses we saw a young lady wear a rich black satin pelerine, handsomely trimmed with a very beautiful black blond; it had a very neat effect, as the dress was light.