1814 Statistics On Classes, Properties and Population In Great Britain. From: 1814 A Treatise On Wealth and Power. By Patrick Colquhoun. These are the statistics for England in Jane Austen’s time, or the early 1800s, or Regency Era.
What did Jane Austen and friends wear? Early 1800s fashions were elegant and pretty with high waists and fabrics that were almost transparent. These Empire style gowns, named after Napoleon’s first Empress, became popular throughout Europe, and were then copied around the world. Colorful outwear was added to make an ensemble more attractive and warmer. History Notes Book 26 Fashion Women 1805-1809.
https://books2read.com/SuziLoveFashionWomen1805-1809
The Empire waist gown defined women’s fashion during the Regency Era. ‘Empire’ is the name given in France to the period when Napoleon built his French Empire. High-waisted, loose gowns were adopted by the aristocracy as a symbol of turning away from the fussy, elaborate and expensive clothing worn in the 1700s. Jean-Jaques Rousseau advocated copying peasants and returning to a simpler life and more natural fashions. Unrestricting clothing was part of the new Democracy in France and these simpler and flowing fashions were adopted all over Europe, including Britain and despite the continual wars being fought against France during the early 1800s. Not even war stopped fashions from being copied everywhere.
Craftsmen created containers of precious metals, leather, and silks and decorated them with jewels and engraving. Jane Austen and her contemporaries would have used writing boxes, linen boxes when travelling, boxes to hold their food and drink supplies while traveling by carriage, and decorative boxes to keep letters, ribbons, gloves, hairpins etc. Boxes, Cases, and Necessaires By Suzi Love, History Notes Book 11. books2read.com/suziloveBoxesCases.
1800 White Walking Dress, English. Worn with a full length bronze wrap and matching turban. Engraved Plate via Rudolph Ackermann’s ‘The Repository’ of Arts.
The Empire dress which evolved in the late 1790s began as a chemise shift gathered under the breasts and at the neck. Named after the First Empire in France, by 1800 Empire dresses had a very low décolleté, or neckline and a short narrow backed bodice attached to a separate skirt. Skirts started directly under the bust and flowed into the classical relaxed wide styles of Greece and Rome. This style of dress is associated with Jane Austen and her contemporaries as a simple cotton high-waisted dress was worn most days and accessorized according to the importance of the occasion.
1818 January Fancy Mourning Dishabille. A lady reading a pink book while wearing Dishabille, or morning dress, though as this labeled ‘Fancy’, it was most likely more formal than any normal At-Home morning dress. Dress of crepe with a lavishly decorated hem, worn over a white cambric Spencer, ornamented with fine muslin, embroidered at the edge with black, finished at neck with a triple ruff of muslin, tied in front with black love. Black sarsnet French apron, edged round with a newly invented trimming of black love. Cornette, or hat, of fine muslin, crowned with a garland of black flowers. Black chamois slippers. Fashion Plate via John Belle’s La Belle Assemblée or, Bell’s Court and Fashionable Magazine, London. The magazine’s General Observations on Fashion and Dress tries to explain why the outfit is labeled ‘Fancy’, ‘However little versatility can possibly be attached to the sable garment of sorrow, yet the Print we have presented to our readers representing the home costume of a lady of high fashion, will prove to them how busy Fancy is in her endeavors to throw a changeful hue over the tinct of solid black.’
I can picture Jane Austen and her female friends and family wearing this sort of dress if they were in half-mourning yet wanted to look fashionable. .
1818 January Lady Reading Book In Fancy Mourning Dishabille Of Blue Dress. #RegencyEra #HistoricalFashion #Mourning. https://books2read.com/SuziLoveFashionWomen1815-1819 Share on X
1818 May Morning and Evening Fashionable Dresses, English. Pale blue dress, heavily decorated with lace, matching hat and with hand held glasses. Lavender dress with low cut bodice, tiny sleeves, lace decoration on the hem, white paisley shawl, long white gloves and large bonnet. Fashion Plate via Lady’s Magazine.
Definition: Morning Walking Dress: Worn out shopping, walking in a city park or the country estate. Presentable and warm, more fashionable than relaxed Morning Dress but not heavily accessorized apart from a shawl that was usually added for warmth.
Definition Evening Dress: There were minute distinctions between ball, dinner, evening and opera gowns, which meant different quality of fabrics and designs. A Ball Gown differed from an evening dress as expensive silk fabrics were usually worn, light or heavy, decorated with lace, embroidery or beading, with low-cut bodice, short or no sleeves, and full skirts. In the early 1800s, white cotton dresses were considered suitable for many evening events, but not for balls. And definitely not for an evening event in a palace. White dresses with white embroidery for evening were considered fashionable and exclusive as only the wealthy could afford them.
1816 December. Promenade Dress, or Pelisse, English, also called a Redingote in France. High cambric muslin dress trimmed at the bottom with a single flounce of work, shaped without any fulness to fit the body, plain long sleeve finished by a triple fall of narrow lace. Over this is the Angouleme pelisse of crimson velvet, lined with white Sarsnet, and trimmed with a single Welt of crimson satin, a shade lighter than the pelisse. Shaped the to the body and without much fullness, confined at the short waist with narrow velvet band, edged to match. Small stand-up collar, supports a rich lace ruff, which is worn open in front of the throat. Sleeve has little fullness and is confined at the wrist by three narrow bands of puckered satin. Bonnet of white satin a la Royale with a large bunch of flowers and tied under the chin with satin ribbon and finished in front with a full quilling of tulle. Black silk ridicule, exquisitely worked in imitation of the ends of an India shawl and trimmed with black silk fringe. White kid gloves and black walking shoes. Fashion plate, hand-colored engraving on paper. Published in Rudolph Ackermann’s ‘The Repository of Arts’, London.
Promenade Dress, Pelisse, Redingote, Or Walking Dress. Jane Austen and her contemporaries wore long coats like these to keep warm when out and about, visiting, shopping etc. The thin muslin dresses worn in the early 1800s were little protection against European winters.
1808 Richard Trevithick’s Steam Circus, Bloomsbury, London, U.K. Site where Trevithick ran his locomotive ‘Catch Me Who Can’. Trevithick wanted to prove that traveling by train was faster than on horseback. Locomotive ran at top speed of 19 km per hour and people paid a shilling to sit in an attached car and be pulled around. Via Wikimedia Commons commons.wikimedia.org (PD-ART) This was the start of the railway expansions across England in Jane Austen’s time.
“I remember who you are, Lady Melton,” Captain Belling said in a cold voice, barely glancing over his shoulder at them. “The only thing I don’t know is why the hell you and that child are still anywhere near Waterloo, when all women were ordered to evacuate a week ago.”
“That child has a name, Captain. His name is Daniel, or if you are a stickler for formality, Viscount Melton.”The captain turned and frowned down at her son, who stared back at him with blatant curiosity and a small amount of animosity, as forthright as any young and intelligent child. Even at his young age, Daniel was a shrewd judge of character, and had been instructed by his uncles to be careful about trusting strangers. When the Captain turned back to the tattered maps spread over his makeshift desk, Anne ignored his unspoken dismissal and used the time to observe the infuriating man without having his condemning gaze fixed on her, as it had been a week earlier at the Duke and Duchess of Richmond’s extravagant Brussels ball. If she and Daniel were to travel with his group of wounded soldiers, Anne wanted to learn as much as possible about their leader. Her son’s survival depended on her being well informed and prepared for any eventuality.
Dust filtered down through a gaping hole in the high roof and settled in the Captain’s hair, turning it a darker brown than his normal golden yellow, though a bucketful of dust wouldn’t make any difference to the state of his stained uniform. His left pants’ leg had been sliced open to the knee, the two sides pinned clear of the large bandage winding down most of his leg, while a spindly wooden crutch was propped against the table.
His large physique had attracted her even before their dance at the ball, though his striking physical attributes didn’t compensate for his belligerent attitude, or for his obvious displeasure at encountering her both in Brussels and near the battlefield. Still, the Captain had undoubtedly scowled in a similar fashion at many women he’d met either in Brussels or at Waterloo, as she’d heard him spout his narrow-minded view at the ball to his fellow officers. The Captain believed that in the vicinity of battles only men should be allowed. Not women, and especially not ladies.
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1808 ca. Jane Austen style high-waisted muslin dress with bib front, British. High stomacher front, i.e. a bib front fastened with pins, and embroidered with clusters of flowers and leaves. Embroidery satin stitch, chain stitch and French knots. Dress of muslin, embroidered in wool with a design of flowers and leaves down the sleeves and across the front of the dress. The bodice back and side fronts are lined with linen and there are linen undersleeves. The front of the bodice is made up of a panel of bias-cut muslin, which is sewn onto the skirt rather like the bib of an apron so that it can be placed in position at the neck with pins. When the pins are removed the bib front falls away to reveal linen underflaps which fasten across the bust to give support. This type of bodice construction was common during this period in this style of dress and is known as the high stomacher front.
Embroidered with clusters of flowers and leaves and embroidery is worked in satin stitch, chain stitch and French knots, the design trails down across the front of the dress and around the scalloped hemline to simulate a draped tunic-style garment slit up the side seam. Front bodice has panel of bias-cut muslin sewn onto skirt like the bib of an apron so that it can be placed in position at the neck with pins. When the pins are removed the bib front falls away to reveal linen underflaps which fasten across the bust to give support. Bib front bodice construction was common in the Regency Era, or Jane Austen’s years, in this style of dress and is known as the high stomacher front. via Victoria and Albert Museum, London, U.K.
