Fashion In The Time Of Jane Austen by Sarah Jane Downing Page B
Authors: Sarah Jane Downing
Ads: Link
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!
AFTER THE AGE OF ELEGANCE
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:
I think Maryanne & me are very like in disposition, that certainly I am not so good, the same imprudence, &c, however remain very like. I must say it interested me much.
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
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!
AFTER THE AGE OF ELEGANCE
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:
I think Maryanne & me are very like in disposition, that certainly I am not so good, the same imprudence, &c, however remain very like. I must say it interested me much.
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
Similar Books
