1804-1815 ca. Wedding Dress. Silk dress with square bodice and very small bodice, short puffed sleeves, beautiful train decorated in gold. via Palais Galliera, or Musée de la Mode de la Ville de Paris. City of Paris Fashion Museum, formerly Musée Galliera. https://books2read.com/SuziLoveFashionWomen1805-1809
Wedding ring customs that originated in long ago history.
Betrothal ring – An old Roman custom confirming that the marriage contract would be carried out. It was the first part of a dowry given, and it meant the woman was no longer for sale as the first part of the monetary settlement had been paid.
Wedding ring – many primitive peoples who believed in magic used a rope around the waist or the hand and feet, and later a ring, to symbolise that the bride was captured and spoken for, and also to ward off any evil spirits hovering around the bride and ensure marital bliss.
The ring hand– a symbol of the humiliating tradition of the man as the master – the right hand of the family – and the woman being the slave . The right hand stood for power and authority while the left hand expressed submission and serfdom.
The ring finger – Ancient Greek and Roman anatomists believed a vein or nerve led from the heart to the third finger – the healing finger – so they romantically linked this finger to the heart. There are also some more practical reasons the third finger continues to be used. It’s the most prominent for displaying a ring, and it cannot be extended to its full length on its own and usually remains slightly bent, preventing the ring slipping off.
So next time you look at a wedding ring, you can think back to how it came to be on someone’s left third finger,
Rituals of courting and marriage from ‘How Did it Begin’ by R. Brasch first published in 1965. In the word ‘Wedlock’, the lock isn’t a lock and chain but the Anglo-Saxon for gift, as wed means a promise. Wedlock pledged the gift of the happiness of a man and a woman. Nearly all courtship rituals can be traced back to early practises designed to ensure the fertility of a union. Kissing is thought to have started because primitive man believed exhaled air had magic power.
Signing an X for a kiss began in the Middle Ages when people were illiterate and used an X to sign and would then kiss the parchment to affirm their sincerity, like kissing the Bible to take an oath. The word ‘Spooning’ to describe courting came for the custom of young men in Wales to carve an elaborate spoon to give as a love token to the girl of their choice in the place of an engagement ring. Leap year proposals by women to men were a rare chance for women to correct an unjust state of affairs, just as the extra day in a leap year was a topsy-turvy day, a leapt over day in other years. In a time when there was a surplus of women, it was a chance of ensuring they were not left on the shelf.
1816 July Opera Dress, English. Dress of white lace worn over a rich soft white satin slip. Skirt trimmed in a style of peculiar elegance, with lace festooned at regular distances, festoons edged by plain band of byas satin and finished by pearl ornaments of a very novel and pretty shape. Lace body is cut byas and richly ornamented round the bosom with pointed lace. Plain long sleeve, very full, except towards the wrist, which is nearly tight to the arm, and elegantly finished with lace. Hair ornamented with a wreath of French roses, parted in front, and simply dressed in loose curls, which fall very low on each side. Hind hair forms a tuft at the back of the head. Necklace, ear-rings, and bracelets of pearl. White satin slippers, and white kid gloves and a blush colored French silk scarf. Fashion Plate via Rudolph Ackermann’s ‘The Repository of Arts’. https://books2read.com/SuziLoveFashionWomen1815-1819
Gorgeous Regency Era clothing came in a wide range of styles to suit every season and occasion. Ladies in the Bridgerton series and in Jane Austen’s times wore Empire style dresses which were usually made of light fabric and floaty in style. By the later 1810s, stripes were very popular and lace and frills were added to make the dress more individual.
In Jane Austen’s times craftsmen created boxes and containers of precious metals, leather, silks, and decorated them with jewels. Boxes, Cases, Etui, Necessaire and everything else that was used to carry essential items for travel, sewing, medicine, writing, and toiletries. Containers were engraved to make exquisite and expensive items as well as practical carrying cases. books2read.com/suziloveBoxesCases
Fascinated with historical fashion? Treat yourself to a nonfiction Box Set on corsets, including Bridgerton and Jane Austen years. Corsets Box Set History Notes Book 22. This Box Set combines corset books 14-21 to give a complete picture of the progression of corset styles from 1700 through to the 1900s, including Jane Austen’s lifetime. These books show how body wraps, stays, and corsets were worn through the centuries to create a variety of fashionable silhouettes through various historical eras. Corsets flattened breasts and accentuated rounded hips or pushed up breasts and showed off the bust line depending on the fashions of the time and the desired silhouette. https://books2read.com/SuziLoveCorsetBook22
Music history from the 17th, 18th, and 19th Centuries. Pianos, pianofortes, harps, viols, violins played during Jane Austen’s times. Musical Instruments were so important in most of the more affluent households in history that large industries grew all around the world to manufacture instruments, musical accessories, and to print sheet music. Musical instruction and encouragement could be found everywhere and both young ladies and gentlemen were encouraged to have musical appreciation. And of course, playing music was on the list of social requirements for all young ladies desirous of becoming a wife and homemaker.
London became Europe’s leading centre for the manufacture of scientific instruments and this led to the manufacture of more musical instruments as well as factories developed and rail transport helped the faster distribution of goods to regional areas. One of the first places that music was used to tell stories and to share enjoyment was in Christmas music. Because music was such an integral part of households, music was always a feature in Magazines. There were advertisements everywhere for musical instruments for sale, for sheet music, and for music lessons. And of course, of most interest to the ladies were the hundreds of fashion plates included in magazines where people were depicted with their musical instruments.
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Love the Bridgerton family and Jane Austen? Reader Or Writer of Regency Era stories? Mourning and riding fashion, dresses, hats, shoes, reticules or bags, underclothing and fashion accessories.
books2read.com/SuziLoveFashionWomen1815-1819
History Notes 28 Fashion Women 1815-1819: This book looks at what was fashionable for women in the Georgian Era and at the end of the Regency Era in Britain and the reconstruction in Europe after the wars. Lifestyles were freer and fashions expressed this by becoming the focus of most women’s lives. A wardrobe full of opulent accessories was requisite. Includes mourning and riding fashion, dresses, hats, shoes, reticules or bags, underclothing, and fashion accessories.
Ladies clothing in the early 1800’s featured a high waist line called an Empire Line, or Empire style dress, with a waist line just under the natural bust line and much higher than the natural waist. High-waisted Empire Line styles dominated fashions for at least three decades from the 1790s until the 1820s. The high-waisted, or short-bodied, Regency styles shifted focus away from the natural waist and so left the natural waist unconstricted, in direct contrast to previous and future styles.
Britain took these simple European styles and progressively made them more elaborate by adding more and more complicated embroidery onto white fabrics to create the white on white look popular for many years. The empire look of fine muslin dresses left women more exposed than in the Georgian Era when fabrics had been thicker and styles bulkier. Women, especially in England, preserved their modesty by adding lace, frills, flounces, ruches, and fabric plaits to dresses to adequately cover any parts that might inadvertently be exposed. Outer layers, such as Spencers, coats and shawls, were also added.
Are you a reader or writer of Regency Romance? Love Jane Austen and the Bridgertons? Want to know more about the mourning, riding, underclothing and other Regency Era women’s fashions in Regency romances? What was fashionable for women in Jane Austen’s times? Mourning, riding, daytime, evening clothing, plus underclothing, corsets and accessories. This book looks at what was fashionable for women in Jane Austen’s times, or the early 1800s, or the Regency Era in Britain. Wars were being fought around the globe so women’s fashion adopted a military look in support of soldiers. Fashions, like the lifestyle, became progressively more extravagant and accessories went from colorful to over-the-top. https://books2read.com/SuziLoveFashion1810-1814
The Lady’s Magazine said of the basis of women’s fashion that was popular for the first twenty years of the 1800s, ‘White is still the prevailing color for robes. For morning dresses, linen gowns, in large diamonds or squares, are fashionable. Indian muslins, plain or embroidered, are preferred to Florence and satins. The designs of embroidery for shawls are of infinite variety. Long gloves, which reach above the elbow, are not yet laid aside. Medallions are hung around the neck from crossed chains and some of these medallions are shaped like the bags, called ridicules. These reticules are of the lozenge or hexagon shape, with a small tassel at each angle. Reticules, or ridicules, are in lozenge or hexagon shapes with a small tassel at each angle. In capotes, or hats, and ribbands, the violet and dark green prevail over jonquil. Bracelets in hair, pear-shaped ear-rings, medallions on square plates, saltiers of colored stones, are still in fashion.’
1845-1865 ca. Cream Silk Evening Slippers, British. Cream evening shoes with ankle ties and lace trim. Trim is unusual because mid 19th Century ladies’ shoes were often plain as only toes showed beneath fashionable long skirts. Designed By Hobbs, famous London shoemaker, and with a label attached to lining with a regal crest to show maker’s royal patronage. via Metropolitan Museum, NYC, U.S.A. metmuseum.org
A sedan chair is a portable enclosed chair for a single passenger. It was generally carried by two “chairmen” holding poles attached to either side of the chair. Sedan chairs were fashionable in England and Europe during the 17th, 18th and early 19th centuries and were an important part of the social life of the times. They were very useful for negotiating crowded, unsafe, narrow, winding and often filthy streets and were particularly used by “invalids, ladies and party goers”. Sedan chairs had the advantage of being able to be carried up and down stairs and could deliver the passenger from inside their own home to inside their destination without having to step outside.
1784 Sedan Chair. ‘The return from a masquerade. A morning scene.’ A young lady dressed as shepherdess with staff slumps in a sedan chair. Asleep or drunk her head and shoulders hang outside window. Two porters smile and dwarf chimney sweep carries a mask.’ By Robert Dighton and Cari.
The 19th century English author, Elizabeth Gaskell, described the use and function of the sedan perfectly in her novel “Wives and Daughters” when she reminisced how the Browning sisters chose to be transported to a ball by sedan chair, which ‘came into the parlor, and got full of the warm air, and nipped you up, and carried you tight and cosy into another warm room, where you could walk out without having to show your legs by going up steps, or down steps.’
The Bath Chair was invented in Bath, England, in the mid 18th Century to transport the wealthy and the sick around the city. It could be steered by the passenger and rivaled and then outdid the Sedan Chair as only one chairman was needed to operate it. The last Bath Chairman retired in 1949.
Typical 1700s, or Eighteenth Century Sedan Chair. Portable enclosed chair for single passenger usually carried by two chairmen holding poles attached to either side of chair. Fashionable during 17th, 18th and early 19th centuries when needed to negotiate crowded, unsafe, narrow, and dirty streets. Used by invalids, ladies and party goers. The sedan chair comprises a small kiosk with a curved timber roof which is covered with leather and studded with brass nails. The front and side panels are painted in green with floral decorations of cherubs and flowers. The back panel is of plain timber. Access to the chair was via a hinged door at the front. Inside, the chair is upholstered in silk and features padded upholstered arm rests. The windows have raw silk curtains which are gathered with tassels. The present brackets and poles are reproductions made in 1986 prior to display in the Transport exhibition. The total length of the new poles are 80 inches. The sedan chair door lock features the initials “V.F.” and a set of crossed keys with the wording “PARIS” and the number “34”. Via Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, Australia.
Typical 1700s, or Eighteenth Century Sedan Chair. Portable enclosed chair for single passenger usually carried by two chairmen holding poles attached to either side of chair. Fashionable during 17th, 18th and early 19th centuries when needed to negotiate crowded, unsafe, narrow, and dirty streets. Used by invalids, ladies and party goers. The sedan chair comprises a small kiosk with a curved timber roof which is covered with leather and studded with brass nails. The front and side panels are painted in green with floral decorations of cherubs and flowers. The back panel is of plain timber. Access to the chair was via a hinged door at the front. Inside, the chair is upholstered in silk and features padded upholstered arm rests. The windows have raw silk curtains which are gathered with tassels. The present brackets and poles are reproductions made in 1986 prior to display in the Transport exhibition. The total length of the new poles are 80 inches. The sedan chair door lock features the initials “V.F.” and a set of crossed keys with the wording “PARIS” and the number “34”. Via Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, Australia.
The longest journey recorded in a sedan chair was made by Princess Amelia, youngest daughter of King George III, who in 1728 was carried by 8 chairmen working in reliefs from London to Bath, a distance of 172 kms (107 miles). This sedan chair door lock features the initials “V.F.” and a set of crossed keys with the wording “PARIS” and the number “34”.
