The Eighteenth Century (History of Costume and Fashion volume 5)

A History of Fashionand CostumeThe EighteenthCenturyAnne Rooney

The Eighteenth Century

Copyright © 2005 Bailey Publishing Associates Ltd

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Picture Research: Glass Onion Pictures

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Library of Congress Cataloging-

in-Publication Data

Rooney,Anne.A history of fashion and costume.

The eighteenth century/AnneRooney.

p. cm.Includes bibliographical references and

index.ISBN 0-8160-5948-9

1. Clothing and dress—History—18th century—Fashion—History—18th century.

GT585.R66 2005391/.009/033—dc 22

2005040156

The publishers would like to thank the

following for permission to use their

pictures:

Art Archive: 9, 12, 17, 18,

32, 37 (top), 45, 47 (right), 49, 55

(both), 59

Bridgeman Art Library: 6, 7, 10 (top),

14, 16 (both), 27, 33 (top), 35 (both),

39, 41, 50, 58

Hanan and Farah Munayyer

Collection: 21 (top)

Peter Newark: 29 (both), 36, 38, 48

Topham: 26

Victoria & Albert Museum: 11, 23, 24,

25, 40, 42 (bottom), 44, 46, 52, 57

Contents

Introduction 5

Chapter 1: Changing Fashions in the West 6

Chapter 2: Worn Around the World 18

Chapter 3: Functional Fashions 32

Chapter 4: Not Just Clothes 48

Timeline 60

Glossary 61

Further Information 62

Index 64

IntroductionThe eighteenth century saw the beginnings of the modernfashion industry in Europe and America. Fashion magazinesappeared and the first fashion plates were produced. For thefirst time, designs could be published and copied widely.Fashions began to change quickly, led by Paris and London.Designs were dictated not by practical needs but by trends in art, culture, and politics, by new discoveries, technologicalinnovations, and scientific advances. Some European fashionswere, in fact, so impractical they rendered their wearers almostincapable of everyday activity.

Elsewhere fashions changed slowly. In Asia, textile productionwas already greatly advanced and beautiful garments had beenproduced for centuries.Their designs evolved slowly, followingtraditional or symbolic patterns, and were often linked to thesocial and religious standing of the wearer.

In countries where the climate was warm, clothes could bebasic or even non-existent; the concept of changing fashionswas alien. In some places, simply structured garments werebeautifully adorned, following patterns and styles used forgenerations without change.

This book traces the developing fashions of the West. But it also looks at the strictly regulated clothing worn in the FarEast, where choosing the wrong color robe could bring direpunishment. It visits the Inuit, who made clothes from fish skin and the intestines of sea mammals. It looks at clothing for special purposes, from the leather armor of the samurai to shamans’ garments decorated with bones and bird beaks.People around the world have delighted in decorating theirbodies and clothes. In their costumes, they leave a record oftheir lives, their concerns, and their beliefs that unlocks the past.

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The seventeenth century endedwith women wearing a pointed,boned bodice with a wide gownopen over an underskirt, oftendecorated with flounces.This stylecontinued through the first decadeof the eighteenth century, but was soon overtaken by the sack or sack-back dress.

The Sack DressThe sack dress emerged around 1705,quickly became popular, andremained in fashion until the 1780s,although other styles were current

The clothes worn by the upper classes in France andEngland set the style for all of fashionable Europe

and America.Although there was a lot of regionalvariation in the clothes of working people and thosewho lived in the countryside, the wealthy classes fromPhiladelphia to Moscow wore similar styles.

Women’s Fashions: 1700–1750

Chapter 1: Changing Fashions in the West

alongside it after 1720.The sack dresswas a very wide and rather shapelessoverdress, with a gathered or pleatedpiece of fabric attached at theshoulder and flaring out toward theground.The dress might cross over atthe front. Sometimes the fullness ofthe skirt was caught up in slits in theunderskirt, so that effectively thedress went into its own pockets.Thefront could be either open, to showan underskirt, or closed.The sleeveswere flat at the tops of the arms, butflared out at the elbow, finishing witha stiff, pleated cuff.

Sack dresses, 1731. Theexample in the middle isunusual in having a highneckline.

PaniersThe sack dress was given shape by ahoop or panier underneath.This wasa wide framework of whalebone,cane, or metal hoops, held togetherwith fabric and ribbons.The panierwas at first circular, but the shapechanged between 1725 and 1730,becoming oval and larger, with acircumference of up to eleven feet(3.35 m). Dresses became so widethat women often had to turnsideways to walk through doors. Laterpaniers were often made in two parts,one for each side. Paniers remainedfashionable until the 1760s andcontinued as part of formal courtdress after this.

French FashionA variation on the sack dress, thestyle à la française, began to appeararound 1720.This had pleats fallingloose from the neckline at the back,but a shaped front.A fitted bodicewas fastened to either side of atriangular stomacher, a piece of richlydecorated fabric over the chest.Sometimes it was replaced by ordecorated with a ladder of bows of decreasing size.

Spinning and Weaving TechnologiesEngland was preeminent in spinning and weaving cloth. During the eighteenth century,several inventions mechanized cloth production, making it easy to make quality clothquickly and cheaply. Fabric woven manually could only be as wide as the distancebetween a person’s outstretched hands, because the shuttle had to be passed from hand to hand. The invention of the flying shuttle in 1733 meant that wider fabrics could be woven. Spinning technology improved with the spinning jenny (1764) and then the spinning mule (1779), which could spin strong, fine thread good enough formaking muslin.

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Changing Fashions in the West

The Marquise de Pompadourwearing a very ornate dressin the à la française style.

The over-gown opened widely overa decorated petticoat and was edgedfrom the hem, around the neck anddown to the hem again, with a frillor puffed edging.The sleeves werecut to show a cuff of lace flouncesbeneath, shallow on the inside ofthe arm but quite extravagant onthe outside.

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Men’s Fashions: 1700–1770

Two men wearing banyans. The man on theleft has replaced his wig with a cap.

In Europe and America, men’sclothing changed only slowly formost of the eighteenth century.France and England led Europe inmen’s fashion as in women’s.

Three EssentialGarmentsMen’s dress was characterized byknee-length trousers, called breeches,worn with stockings, a waistcoat, anda coat called a justaucorps.At the startof the century, the formal, or fulldress, coat had a wide skirt and largesleeves with extravagant cuffs, turnedback, and no collar. It buttoned fromthe neck to the hem and camenearly to the knee, almost coveringthe breeches. It had large pocketsand vents (slits) with pleats at theback and sides, allowing the skirt tomove freely. By 1715 it was commonto wire the hem to make it standout. For informal wear (undress), andamong working men, a coat called afrock was worn.This was of the samestyle, but less rigid and with a small,turned down collar.

The sleeved waistcoat was nearly aslong as the coat itself. It, too,buttoned all the way down thefront. Beneath the waistcoat a manwore a white shirt with laceflounces at the cuffs and down thefront. A lace cravat at the neckserved instead of a collar until 1735.Later, a stock (stiffened neckband)was worn, sometimes with a blacktie called a solitaire.The coat wasoften worn open to show thewaistcoat, and later the waistcoat wasopen to the waist to show the laceon the shirt.The breeches were fulland fastened at the knee.White orcolored silk stockings were rolledover the bottom of the breeches and fastened with a garter. Later inthe century, and for working men,

This waistcoat is embroidered only on the visible parts – the back and mostof the sleeves are plain.

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the breeches fastened over the stockings.

Changing ShapesAs the century progressed, the skirtsof the coat and waistcoat becamenarrower.Waistcoats became shorter,no longer buttoned to the hem, andlost their sleeves. Coat sleeves becamecloser fitting, and the cuffs firstnarrowed at the wrist and finallybecame less flamboyant. From the1730s onward, the front of the coatcurved back to show the breeches,and could be buttoned only to thewaist, although it was unusual to seeit buttoned at all.The breeches werecut closer to the leg, so that thewhole profile was slimmer.

Hats and WigsFrom around 1715, wigs werepowdered and worn long and curled,with the hair falling down on eitherside of the face. Because this wasinconvenient, there was a changeduring the century to shorter wigs,with the hair tied in a pigtail at thenape of the neck and, later, held inplace in a black silk or gummedtaffeta bag.

At home or in their place of business,men removed their wigs and wore

small, embroidered caps instead.Tricorn (three-cornered) hats weredecorated at first with feathers orribbon and, later, a simple braidedging.They were often carriedrather than worn.

UndressIndoors, particularly during the morning, men often wore a loose dressing gown called a banyanover their breeches and shirt. This was often made of silk damask and sometimes richlyembroidered. In winter a quilted silk banyan could be worn. Writers and artists are often shown inportraits wearing a banyan and cap, a style which became associated with intellectual activity. Inthe American South, thin cotton banyans were even worn outside by planters and their wives.


Information about currentfashions crossed theEnglish Channel in theform of fashion dolls, ormoppets, dressed incurrent styles.

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Women’s Fashions: 1750–1780Women’s fashions multiplied rapidlyin the middle of the eighteenthcentury, with one style followinganother in quick succession. Englishstyles were popular and hadconsiderable impact on French dress,as did influences from the Orient andthe Middle East.

In the court of Louis XVI in France(reigned 1774–1792), dresses becameextremely ornate and extravagant, areflection of the excesses of thearistocratic life that fuelled theFrench Revolution in 1789. Ingeneral, English styles were morerestrained than French ones.

The Style à l’AnglaiseEnthusiasm for English styles beganin France in the last years of thereign of Louis XIV (reigned1643–1715) and took hold in 1755.In women’s fashion, it produced thestyle known as à l’anglaise. Thebodice was boned at the seams, butsofter than the very structuredFrench style. It formed a point at theback, meeting a skirt that had a shorttrain gathered at the hips and wassupported not with a panier but witha simple, padded bustle.The front hada plunging neckline, usually filled inwith a linen fichu, a triangle of fabricworn over the shoulders and neck.The skirt opened widely over anunderskirt.

The RedingoteAnother English style was theredingote, developed from ridingcostume and popularized incontinental Europe after the first

In this portrait, thewoman is dressed àl’anglaise. A redingote, worn open to show the

underskirt.

horse races in Paris.This had a fittedbodice, buttoned at the front andsometimes crossing over like a man’sgreatcoat.The skirt could be closed,or open to reveal the underskirt. Itwas often worn with a huge,feathered hat, also English in origin.

À la PolonaiseParticularly popular in the Frenchcourt was a style called à la polonaise,meaning “in the Polish style” (thoughit was probably never worn inPoland).The overskirt was drawn upover the hips by two drawstrings sothat it fell in three swags, two at the

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sides and one at the back.The dresswas quite short, sometimes comingjust to the ankles. It had flat sleevesthat usually ended above the elbow,though a flounce of lace or muslinfell over the elbow.

Spanish VariationsWhile the upper classes in mostEuropean countries copied Frenchfashions closely, the Spanish variedit slightly from the middle of thecentury. Spanish women wore theirdresses somewhat shorter and lighterthan in France.They added shawlsin brilliant colors, and wore thetraditional Spanish mantilla, a kindof lace veil in black or whitesupported by a tortoiseshell comb in their hair.

A Riot of ColorScientific work on the nature of color and the spectrum prepared theground for the development of new dyes. Newton’s Treatise on Optics(1704) explained that all other colors were formed by combining red,yellow, and blue. Johan Tobias Mayer in Gottingen claimed that 9,381colors could be distinguished by the human eye.

Chemical dyes and pigments—derived from minerals, plants, and

lichens—were developed, and by the end of the eighteenth century a

range of colors in bright as well as subtle and muted tones could be

achieved. Bleaching with chlorine was discovered in 1774 and went

into commercial operation in 1786.

Color printing on fabric, legalized in England and France after 1759,produced good results. Copperplate printing was invented in 1757,followed by roller printing in 1783. This enabled large-scale,industrialized printing on fabrics, so that printed patterns becamepopular and widespread.


A mantua, or court dress,with a very wide skirt. It ismade of silk, embroideredwith silk and silver thread.

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Men’s Fashions: 1770–1830The man’s profile slimmed downduring the last decades of theeighteenth century, and the slendershape remained fashionable until the1830s.The flamboyant brocades ofthe earlier eighteenth century gaveway to finer fabrics in plain colors orstripes, and all adornment slowlyvanished.

The Frock CoatFrom the middle of the century, thefront of the coat was cut away, so thatthe sides swept away from the waist.The coat remained long at the backwhere it fell into three parts withtwo vents. Based on English ridingclothes, this design was called thefrock coat or redingote, and itinfluenced women’s fashion, too.

The costume of the sans-culottes: trousers,a cut-away coat with tails,and no wig.

By the early years of the nineteenthcentury, the back vents had comecloser together and were combinedso that the skirt of the coat fell intwo “tails.” This is the origin of thetailcoat, worn to this day for formalweddings and balls.

The Waistcoat The origins of the modern waistcoatdate from the early nineteenthcentury, too. No longer buttoned to astraight hem, the waistcoat ended intwo points on either side of the frontfastening.

From Breeches toTrousersBreeches became closer-fittingduring the eighteenth century, and

The Sans-culottesThe French Revolution in 1789

saw the overthrow of the

French aristocracy and king by

the middle and lower classes.

The revolutionaries were called

the sans-culottes after their

clothes—sans-culotte is Frenchfor “without breeches.” They

disdained the ornate breeches

of the aristocracy in favor of

the trousers worn by working

men. By abandoning the

fashion of the day, the

revolutionaries declared their

solidarity with the working

classes and their rejection of

aristocratic French society.


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after the French Revolution a fashionfor trousers replaced them.Adaptedfrom the dress of sailors and theworking classes, trousers were soonworn in a close-fitting style that wassuitable for riding, often with softleather boots which came to mid-calfor the knee.

Dandies and theMacaroniWhile some men were abandoningunnecessary adornment, fops ordandies embraced it.The mostfamous dandy was Beau Brummell(1778–1840), a friend of the Englishprince regent (later George IV).Brummell reportedly spent all of hisinherited fortune on fine clothes.

A group of dandies referred to asthe Macaroni in the 1770s and1780s were young British men whoadopted the high fashion of Franceand Italy.Their style was fussy,overdressed, highly ornamented,and frivolous.They wore powderedwigs, tiny tricorn hats, and nosegays(posies of flowers). Not surprisingly,they were the butt of many jokesand were caricatured ruthlessly.The lines in the song “YankeeDoodle,”– “Stuck a feather in hishat, And called it Macaroni,”– refer to the pretensions of aYankee aspiring to Europeanfashions by putting a feather in his outmoded hat.

Wigs to Real HairToward the end of the eighteenthcentury, wigs were discarded by manymen in favor of a wild, tousled

A Macaroni wearingcharacteristic striped tightbreeches, and high,powdered wig.

hairstyle known as the herisson(“hedgehog” in French).

The tricorn hat, which had becomesmaller and less ornate during themiddle of the century, was abandonedin Europe (though it was retained inAmerica). Instead, a tall beaver hatwas worn.

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Women’s Fashions: 1780–1830

In the late eighteenth century,fashion was influenced by newdirections in political and socialthought that changed the way peopleconsidered themselves and theirbodies.There was a move away fromornate and constricting clothes tomore fluid shapes that followed theline of the body.

Rejecting RichesFrom 1783 onward, the French courtfollowed the lead of the queen, MarieAntoinette, in abandoning the huge,ornate, and constricting dresses of theprevious years for all except the mostformal occasions. By the time of theFrench Revolution in 1789, the mostextravagant excesses had already beenabandoned by most fashionablepeople. During the revolution,ostentatious displays of wealthbecame not only unfashionable buteven dangerous.

English styles remained popular.Dresses had a softer line, or were

based on the redingote, andsupported by light padding.A finelinen fichu was often worn over thechest, and the ribbons, bows, lace, andjewels of the 1770s disappeared.Dresses were usually in plain colorsor stripes, unadorned except for asimple sash and sometimes adecorative apron. Ideals of rusticsimplicity became popular. Patterns,when they were used, were inspiredby nature, showing delicate flowersand leaves.

Slimmer LinesIn the early to mid-1790s, a shiftdress or chemise made of thincotton in white or pale colorsbecame popular.The skirt begandirectly under the bust and fell tothe floor with no further shaping,flowing around the body. Sleeveswere small and puffed, necklinesoften square. In France, a fewwomen, called les merveilleuses, tookthe style to extremes, wearingdresses so thin and flimsy they werethought indecent.

Although outside France dresseswere heavier, they followed the samestyle. Around 1800 they becamemore substantial in France, too.Thestyle, called the Empire line, wasmodified slightly in the early yearsof the nineteenth century, oftenhaving a length of pleated fabric atthe back that fell like a train or anovergown. Richer colors and heavierfabrics eventually replaced the finemuslins.The waist remained high,and the sleeves were either short andpuffed or, later, long and close to the

The Grecian style of herdress is continued in thewoman's hairstyle andbare feet.


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lower arm, though often still puffedat the top. Long kid gloves wereworn for warmth with short sleeves.

Keeping WarmWith dresses of thin fabrics and noroom for padded undergarments,women wore cashmere shawls, capes,or jackets for warmth.A very shortjacket that stopped just below thebust, called a spencer, appeared in1797.A pelisse, a cape-like coat withloose half-length sleeves and fur trim,was also popular.

The End of an EraExaggerated shapes resurfaced from1820 to 1830, with very puffedsleeves, slender waists created byboning, and skirts becoming wider

again, preparing the way for the wideskirts of the mid- and late nineteenthcentury.

The Cotton Trade The booming trade in cotton helped the growingpopularity of light dresses, and the demand for them inturn fueled the cotton trade. Cotton was grown in thesouthern American states, on plantations worked byslaves from Africa. The trade was based on a triangularshipping route that took slaves from Africa to America,raw cotton from America to the mills of Europe,particularly England and France, and then took finishedgoods to Africa. Slavery meant that cotton could beproduced cheaply and in great quantities. Moves toabolish slavery, beginning in the late eighteenth century,met with huge resistance from those who profited fromthe cotton trade.

Women in transitional dress (on the left) and characteristicEmpire-line dresses.

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Babies wore instead a cotton or linenshirt covered by a wraparound robewith separate sleeves, or a long frockthat opened at the back.These camebelow the feet until the baby beganto walk. Babies’ heads were keptcovered at all times with caps—oftena forehead piece, then a close-fittingundercap, and finally a decorated cap.

ToddlersOnce children learned how to walkthey needed different clothes. Bothboys and girls wore a back-fasteningbodice and a skirt to the ankles whenvery young, or sometimes a front-opening or wraparound gown.Thisallowed for easy diaper changing. Inthe second half of the eighteenthcentury, a looser frock with a sash atthe waist was popular. Frocks orgowns often had leading strings orreins attached for an adult to holdwhile the child was learning how towalk. In the early decades of thenineteenth century, the dress wasslightly shorter and worn with loosetrousers, called pantaloons.

Children’s ClothesAttitudes toward children andchildhood changed during theeighteenth century, influencing theway they were dressed.At thebeginning of the century, even quiteyoung children wore miniatureversions of adult clothes, but by theend of the century they were wearingmore suitable outfits that allowed freermovement.

BabiesIn many parts of the world, babieswere tightly swaddled—wrapped inbands of fabric—and often strapped towooden “cradle boards.”This wasthought to encourage their limbs togrow straight. In Europe, swaddlingdropped out of favor during theeighteenth century, and amongeducated people it had beenabandoned completely by about 1780.However, many children wore stays(boned corsets) to encourage straightposture and correct growth.

While the youngestchildren wear simple whitedresses, the older oneswear clothes similar tothose of the adults.

Here, the girl wears a soft shift dress andthe boy a skeleton suit of attached trousersand jacket.


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These Venetian childrenwear the same styles ofclothes as their parents.

Dressed like AdultsIn the first half of the eighteenthcentury, children were dressed in thesame styles as adults, adapted onlyslightly for their different needs. Evenquite small girls wore hoops orpaniers and boned bodices.Theyalways wore an apron to protect theirclothes. Boys wore frock coats andornamented waistcoats, and ofteneven full-bottomed wigs orpowdered hair. For everyday wear,they might leave off either the frockcoat or the waistcoat and wear theirbreeches open at the knee, but forformal wear their clothes were thesame as those of their fathers.

More FreedomBy the 1770s and 1780s, childrenwere wearing looser clothes thatmade it easier for them to movearound and play. Boys began to weartrousers rather than breeches.Between 1780 and 1820, boys up tothe age of ten wore a “skeleton suit.”This consisted of trousers worn overand buttoned onto a jacket.

Girls and small boys began to wearlight shift dresses before the stylebecame popular for women.Thewaist of the dress was high and

covered with a sash.They often worea muslin shift over a taffeta or silkunderdress.

BreechingAt three or four, boys were “breeched,” meaning that they began to wear breeches instead ofa dress. Breeching was celebrated as an occasion that marked the end of young childhoodand the point at which the boy was ready for education or, in poorer circles, work. Not onlyhis age but a boy’s height helped to decide when he was breeched—a short boy might haveto wait until he was a little older. The breeching ceremony continued even after boys began towear trousers instead of breeches.

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While French and English fashions dominatedwestern Europe and North America, their

influence decreased farther east and outside the colonialcenters in America. In some areas, very cold or very hotweather dictated what people wore. Costume was alsorestricted by the technologies and materials available tomake clothes.

In eastern Europe and Russia, theinfluence of Persian and Turkish dresscan be seen, tempered in the northby a need for warmth.

Poland and EasternEuropeEuropean fashions were popular inthe Polish royal court, but elsewheretraditional Polish costume had astrong hold. Upper-class men wore along, tight-fitting garment called azupan, covered with a kontush, a coatwith long, hanging sleeves that wasPersian in origin.The kontush wassmooth at the front but pleated at theback, the collar either upright orfolded back. In 1776 a government

Chapter 2: Worn Around the World

Heading East

A Polish soldier with acloak over his kontush.The red leather bootsshow that he is of noble birth.

decree in Poland and Austria imposedcolor-coding on the zupan andkontush, with standardized colors andtrimmings for each province.

Women wore a long dress withclose-fitting sleeves and an overdresssimilar to the kontush.This was openfrom the waist and nearly alwaystrimmed with fur.The sleeves andfront of the dress beneath werevisible.

Traditional peasants’ costume was ashort tunic with long trousers wornwith a long cloak or overcoat ofsheepskin, and boots or shoes wovenfrom strips of bark.

A range of men’s fashions from Eastern Europe from the seventeenth and eighteenthcenturies.

Worn Around the World

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Russian Court andCountryThe Russian court followed Parisianfashions, often quite extravagantly.The empress Elizabeth is said to haveleft 15,000 gowns at her death, andnever to have worn any more thanonce. She also had a collection ofthousands of pairs of shoes andslippers, and had silk stockings sent to her from France.

Western styles had been forced onthe nobility by Tsar Peter the Greatafter an extended visit to Europe in1698. Peter decreed that long coatsbe cut off at the knee. He demandedthat all men cut their beards off orpay a beard tax.

In contrast with the extravagance ofthe court, ordinary people in Russiawore the same type of clothesthroughout the eighteenth century,though with a lot of regionalvariations. In the steppes (areas ofgrassland with hot summers and coldwinters), men wore a simple, looseshirt and wide trousers, tucked intoboots. Over this they wore a caftan, anarrow coat with long sleeves, which

was crossed over at the front and tiedwith a sash or turlup. Over this theycould wear an overcoat called a ferez,which often had long sleeves, butusually no collar or belt.

Women wore a long, wide gown,belted at the waist, and a diademheaddress with an attached veil.All ofthe clothes were brightly colored anddecorated with embroidery. In winter,the peasants who lived in the countrywore very thick stockings and manylayers of clothes to keep warm.

The Fur TradeRussian territorial expansion was driven largely by the “fur rush” (1742–c. 1782), the desire to acquire furs for use and sale abroad. Russians colonized Siberia from the late sixteenthcentury, seeking gems and the furs of squirrel, fox, beaver, and, most importantly, sable (a smallmarten-like animal). The sables were used in Russia and also sold to Europe. In the eighteenthcentury, the furs of sea otters and seals drove further expansion into Alaska. Many of the localinhabitants, the Aleuts, were forced into slavery, trapping and hunting sea otters and seals forthe Russians. Sea otter fur was prized in China, and most pelts were exported in exchange for silk and tea. Alaska remained Russian until it was sold to the United States in 1867.

Russian women in voluminous gowns and tall headdresses with a flowingveil. The married women wear their hair tied back, while the unmarriedwoman on the far right wears hers in a braid down her back.

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The Middle East

A Turkish woman wearing ashort jacket over herchemise, and flowing,layered skirts.

The basic costume worn in much ofthe Middle East and North Africawas strongly influenced by Muslimtradition. For both men and womenit consisted of a long shirt and widetrousers, gathered or tied at theankles.These were often worn withsome type of coat or dress.

Men’s ClothingMen wore a long-sleeved shirt, whichwas often striped or patterned, andfell to the knees or mid-calf. Overthe shirt, men in the OttomanEmpire (now Turkey and the Balkanstates) wore a red or blue waistcoat

with contrasting braid and smallbuttons placed close together.

A caftan was worn in most parts ofthe Middle East.This was a loosecoat, open at the front, buttoned atthe chest or closed with a scarf. Itcould be trimmed with fur. In someplaces, the long skirts were turnedback and attached to the belt. Forwarmth, a long camel-hair cloakcalled an abayah was thrown over the shoulder. It sometimes had asingle, wide sleeve. Shoes were redleather slippers or boots with turned-up toes.

In many places, menwore the traditional

Turkish fez, a hat with atruncated, conical shape made

of red felt, sometimes with fabricwrapped around it like a turban. InPersia (present-day Iran) the hat wasof lambskin but it had the same shape.

Working men often wore a simpleform of short trousers, a turban, andslippers.They might wear a sleevelesstunic, or go bare chested.

Women’s ClothingWomen often wore a long cottonchemise with their wide trousers andembroidered slippers.There wasmuch regional variation in what wasworn over this. In some places it wasan under-waistcoat with long sleevesopen to the elbows and then a short-sleeved over-waistcoat. In others,people wore an ornamented shortjacket with long sleeves, or a longrobe, often open at the front.


21

was draped over the head and theother wound around the head tokeep the first in place.

In many other parts of Africa, fewclothes were worn.The men of the

Chir, from the Upper Nile,wore only a loincloth of figleaves and a cotton cap. Bazymen, also from the Nile area,wore no clothes, butcovered their bodies withyellow ocher.

Women kept their heads covered,their headdresses varying greatly fromone region and group to another.Most wore a veil either of whitemuslin or of black silk or horsehair.In some places, when outdoors,women were completely covered bya burka, a tent-like garment with avisor or veil over the eyes.

North AfricaNomadic peoples in the desertregions of North Africa were usuallywell covered.The Bedouin woreflowing robes of brown or blackcloth, often embroidered in brightreds and oranges.A short jacket ofdark wool called a jubbe was wornover the robe.They wore a headdressmade of two squares of fabric; one

The TantourThe tantour was an ornateheaddress worn by women inLebanon, possibly from earlytimes until the early nineteenthcentury. Worn only by marriednoblewomen, it was a conemade of gold or silver and wasup to 30 inches (76 cm) tall. Itwas engraved and encrustedwith diamonds, pearls, and otherprecious gems. Holes drilled atthe base of the tantour allowedribbons to tie it to the head. Ascarf was wound around thebase, and a white veil floatedfrom the peak. It was rarelyremoved, even for sleep.

Bedouin man and woman. Redslippers or boots with turned uptoes were worn in manyparts of North Africa.

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IndiaDespite regional and religiousvariations, fashions changed slowly inIndia. Since the efforts of EmperorAkbar (1556–1605) to encourageHindus and Muslims to livepeacefully together, there was a lessclear division between Muslim andHindu dress.

MenswearMen usually wore a coat or tunic,called a jamah or angarkha dependingon the style, with trousers calledpayjamahs. Some people might alsowear a farji, a long waistcoat, usuallywithout sleeves, that was worn openat the front.

Trousers were originally close-fittingat the ankle, wide at the top, andgathered in at the waist. During theeighteenth and early nineteenthcenturies, the leg of the trousers

became wider and looser at thebottom. Many Hindu men wore,instead, a dhoti, an unstitched lengthof cloth that was draped around thelower part of the body.

The coat was close-fitting at the topof the body and had a wide, pleatedskirt which at the end of theseventeenth century came to justbelow the knees. During the earlyeighteenth century it became longer,reaching almost to the ground insome cases.The seam at the waistrose up the body, too, so that the skirtmight start just below the arms.

The coat could be fastened at theneck and waist but with an open slitin between, or have a front flapfolded over and fastened, the wholebeing closed to the neck. It wasfinished with a sash at the waist.Princes are often seen in portraitswearing a nearly transparent coatwhich was made of very fine, whitemuslin.

All men wore a turban, a length ofcotton or silk that was wound aroundthe head. Exactly how it was wornindicated the man’s social andreligious standing, as well as where hecame from. For example, the wealthyoften wore ornate, decorated turbansmade of silk, while an old, poorperson usually wore a simple turbanof plain white cotton.

Women’s ClothesHindu women had worn saris forcenturies, but from the earlynineteenth century onward, Muslim

Variations on men'scostume in India. Thetrousers can be seenthrough the transparentmuslin skirt of the coat.


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Symbolic ColorsThe colors of Indian clothes were often very rich and vibrant. Many ofthe colors had meanings in Indian symbolism. The red dye used(madder) enters fibers deeply and was taken to represent the love ofKrishna and Radha, so it was usually worn by Hindu brides. Gold andsilver together represented the joining of the rivers Ganges andJumna, or the sun and moon. Violet represented the fruit of the jamontree, which in turn stood for the holy Hindu scriptures.

women began to adopt them, too.The sari is a piece of decorated fabricup to twenty-seven feet (8.2 m) longand about four feet (1.2 m) wide thatis folded, wrapped, and draped overthe body.The fullest part is wornaround the hips, falling to theground, and the last part is taken upover the shoulder or head.Theprecise arrangement of the sari variedbetween regions and social groups.

The sari was worn with a shortjacket called a choli. This had shortsleeves and stopped above the waist,leaving the midriff bare above the topedge of the sari.

Muslim women usually wore a choliwith an open-fronted, pleated skirtcalled a ghagra. A panel like an aproncovered the front opening, but wasoften later replaced with a sari.Alternatively, women wore costumessimilar to those of men, withpayjamahs or dhoti and a coat.Theirarms were often bare from the elbow,where the sleeves of the choli or coatended.

A Muslim woman wearing payjamahs and atransparent muslin coat.

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China

like a horse’s hoof that coveredthe back of the hand.The skirtcame to the ankles and was slitat each side. For men, therobe was also slit in the backand the front for horseriding. In other respects, therobe was the same for menand women.

High-ranking membersof the court wore robesdecorated with ninedragons—eight visibleand one hidden on theinner flap. For lower

ranks, the hiddendragon was missing.The design of the

robes was symbolic,with the earth represented at

the bottom by waves and mountains,then the sky by clouds and dragons.The spiritual realm was representedby the wearer’s head.

The robe was worn with a silk girdlewith hanging purses and a knife case,as well as a hat, boots, and necklaces.Women wore a dragon coat over therobe in public.This was a full-length,wide-sleeved surcoat that openeddown the front and was made inblue-black silk with dragons inroundels.

The ornate clothes worn in theChinese imperial court of theeighteenth century were strictlycontrolled, with colors and emblemsused to show the wearer’s rank.

Dragon RobesNormal court wear, called dragonrobes, or qi fu, were straight-cut robeswith a close-fitting neckband.Theyhad an overlapping flap on the right,and fastened at the neck, along theflap, and under the arm.Tubularsleeves ended in a long cuff shaped

An emperor's dragonrobe, identifiable by the bright yellow bandson the sleeves. Only emperors wereallowed to wear this color.


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Ceremonial WearA slightly different robe, called chao fu,was worn for great feasts andsacrifices. It had narrow sleeves endingin “horse-hoof” cuffs and a full,pleated skirt attached at the waistband.A close-fitting neckband had adetachable collar with tips like wingsthat extended over the shoulders.

Only the highest-ranking womenwore chao fu.The woman’s robe wascut straight and long with no changeat the waist. It had a cape-like collarwith flaring epaulets which narrowedto points and went beneath the arms.

OuterwearOver other robes, a three-quarter-length coat of plain purple-black silkgave a clearer indication of rank, withsymbols arranged in panels calledmandarin squares.The emperor’sfamily had arrangements of five-clawed dragons; nobles had four-clawed dragons and mythical beasts;the nine orders of mandarin (official)wore bird and animal motifs.

FabricsThe Chinese have been using silk forup to seven thousand years and usedit for all court dress. In winter, robeswere of heavy silk satin, withembroidered or woven patterns.Theywere quilted or lined with fur forwarmth. In the summer, very lightsilk gauze or damask was used, linedwith lightweight figured silk.

Sumptuary Laws of 1759Sumptuary laws restrict or dictate the clothing peoplemay wear. In 1759 Emperor Qianlong drew up a set ofregulations that determined the costumes to be worn inthe court by the imperial family, nobility, and mandarins.

The colors and decorations worn by people of differentranks were strictly controlled. Only the emperor couldwear bright yellow; members of the imperial familywore shades of yellow, and the nobility wore blue. Thearrangement of dragons, waves, mountains, clouds,and Taoist or Buddhist symbols on robes was strictlylaid down.

The emperor switched from summer to winter robes, orvice versa, on an appointed day at a set hour, andeveryone at court had to follow at the same time orface a severe punishment.

The wife of a court official wearing clothesdecorated with the four-clawed dragonsappropriate to her rank.

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Women of the Edo period, wearing kimonos and obis, watch as ayoung girl dances.

Some of the countries around thePacific were being explored for thefirst time by Westerners in thesecond half of the eighteenthcentury. Members of Captain Cook’sexpeditions, between 1769 and1779, observed the lifestyles ofpeoples in Polynesia and many ofthe small groups of islands in thePacific Ocean. At the same time,Japan remained largely closed to theWest, but South America had beenextensively colonized by the Spanishand Portuguese from the sixteenthcentury onward.

JapanThe main formal and court garmentfor Japanese men and women wasthe kimono.The Edo period(1605–1867) saw a narrow kimonowith the obi, or waist sash, tied atthe back.The kimono was wornover a top and wraparound skirt andan under-kimono.

A new dyeing process, called yuzen,allowed hand-painted designs to betransferred onto silk for the firsttime. Brightly colored, highlydecorative designs became verypopular.

Sarongs from IndonesiaThe traditional garment in Java, for men and women, was the sarong, a rectangular length ofcotton or silk around forty-five by seventy-five inches (115 by 190 cm) that was wrappedaround the body. Sarongs were printed using a dye-resist technique called batik. A design ispainted or stamped onto the fabric with wax, rice paste, or mud, and the fabric is then dyed.The areas covered by wax, paste, or mud are not colored, because the substance resists thedye. The wax is removed by immersing the fabric in very hot water.

Around the Pacific


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Most people wore shirts, trousers orleggings, and stockings, all of cotton.Over this they would wear one ormore cotton robes.Women often worea red silk tunic in place of a shirt.Poorer people made shirts by weavingstrips of bark from the atooshi tree.

The Pacific Islandsand AustraliaInhabitants of the many islands in thePacific wore a wide range of clothing.In New Guinea and the surroundingislands, people wore little more thanskirts made of plant fibers and oftenornate headdresses for battle orceremonies. In Indonesia, silks andcottons imported from India wereworn as skirts and wide trousers. InBorneo, warriors wore a loinclothand a protective breastplate made offish skin.The aborigines in Australiawore simple loincloths and capesmade of plant fibers or animal skins.

South AmericaSouth America was home tocolonists from Europe and the manytribes who lived in the forests andmountains of the interior. Sometribes, which had little or no contactwith the colonists, continued to weartheir traditional clothing, but othersadopted Spanish dress to a greater orlesser degree.

Some tribes wore very few clothes,often just arm or leg bands of fur,decorated with hanging feathers orwith shell or bone ornaments.Loincloths were worn by manytribes, usually made of cotton anddecorated with beads and seeds.

A man from Chile wearinga woolen poncho.

Women commonly wore a simpleskirt or apron, again often made ofcotton.The women of the De'áruwatribe made theirs from marima treebark decorated with seeds.

A common garment in the colder,mountainous regions of Chile wasthe poncho, a rectangular piece ofwoolen fabric similar to a blanketwith a hole for the head, whichreached no further than the knees.Traditional textile design mixedbright colors—usually in geometricpatterns such as stripes, zigzags, andsquares—that had been used sinceAztec and Inca times.

A Yumbo Indian from Quitoin Ecuador. He wearsbands made from fur andfeathersaround his arms and legs.

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Native North Americansbarefoot or made simple sandals fromgrass or bark.

MaterialsMost North American native clothingwas made from the cured leather ofdeer, buffalo, caribou, or elk. Sometribes even used bird and fish skins.Fur came from bears, rabbits,squirrels, marmosets, beaver, or mink.

Although they had no woven fabrics,some tribes made clothes from plantproducts. Men in California and thenorthwest made capes and hats forwet weather from shredded cedarbark or other plant fibers.Tule grasswas used for skirts and sandals.Many tribes made ceremonial capes,skirts, or tunics from a network ofhemp or grass fibers onto which they hung feathers.

DecorationSome tribes decorated their clotheswith embroidery, some with paintingand dyeing, and others withquillwork made by stitching designsin porcupine quill. Quills weremoistened to soften them, sometimesdyed, flattened with teeth, and thenstitched in place. Ornamental objectssuch as shells, bones, bird beaks,teeth, and claws were often stitchedto ceremonial garments or used injewelry.The scalps from colorful birdssuch as woodpeckers and mallardswere sometimes stitched to capes.

Manufacture ofClothesTheir garments were usually tied orstitched with animal sinews or

There were many indigenous racesand tribes in North America in theeighteenth century. Some had nocontact with settlers, and few items oftheir clothing have survived, so littleis known of it. Other tribes were ofgreat interest to American colonistsand Europeans, and their clothing hasbeen well documented.

Regional VariationThe use of clothing by NativeAmericans varied widely. In someplaces, men went naked most of thetime, but in others tribal identity, age,and gender were shown in the designof moccasins (soft shoes) and ofbeadwork, the cut of garments, andthe type of headdress worn.

TypicalGarmentsIn many places, men wore

a simple breechcloth,usually a rectangular pieceof hide or fabric that hungfrom the waist, front, and

back.They might also wearleggings or simple trousers,

and perhaps a tunic.Womennever went naked.They

often wore either a tunicfastened at one or bothshoulders, or a skirt. Often theedges of a tunic, skirt, or dresswould be fringed. In coldweather, both men and womenused a cloak or a blanket, andsome tribes also had hats orhoods. Many tribes woremoccasins, soft leather shoescut in either one or two

pieces. Others went

Fine beadwork wasoften used toembellish simplegarments.

Magical CostumesMany tribes had shamans who carried out rituals to bring rain,successful hunting, or a good harvest. They often wore unusualand extravagant costumes to increase or emphasize their power.

The Iroquois wore grotesque, twisted face masks in curing rites.These were carved from living trees to capture the spirit of anatural god. Others wore feathers from powerful birds, such asgolden eagles, or teeth from grizzly bears, hoping to share thepowers of the animal.

Other magical items included amulets that incorporated thewearer’s umbilical cord, thought by the Sioux to ensure long life. When one of the Shasta of California died, their hair waswoven into a mourning belt.


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sometimes with plant fibers. ManyNative American tribes had noneedles, but dried sinews at the endto form a point. Holes were made inthe leather with a bone awl or thorn,

An Iroquois mask, used inceremonial dances.

Three Cherokee Indians whovisited London in 1762. Intheir dress, they mixtraditional Cherokee itemswith cloth shirts and silvernecklaces from Europeancontacts.

and the sharp end of the sinewcould easily be pushedthrough. Others sometimesused bone needles, or metalneedles traded with Westerners.

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DecorationSome groups decorated their clothes, eitherembroidering them with moose or reindeer hair, addinga patchwork of different-colored fur, or dyeing orpainting them. Special costumes often had decorationsof bone or teeth, feathers, and shells. The shaman anddancers of the Chilkat of Alaska wore a ceremonialdeerskin apron adorned with deer claws, puffin beaks,and quillwork. On their heads they wore a crown ofgrizzly bear claws or a pair of mountain goat horns ona leather band.

In temperate climates, most peoplewore similar clothes in summer andwinter, adding a coat, cloak, orblanket if the weather was particularlycold or wet. Some parts of the world,though, have extreme weather.TheEskimos (or Inuit and Yupic) live inthe most extreme climates in the

Arctic and sub-Arctic regions,where the winter is long and very

cold and the summer is a briefperiod of permanent daylight.

Eskimos Eskimos are a single race of people

who live all around the northernregions of the world, inCanada, Siberia, northern

Scandinavia, and Greenland.Their clothing varied by

region. Some groupshad had contact with

the West by theend of the

eighteenthcentury and so began

to adopt some materials and stylesnot native to them.

The ArcticMaterialsThe regions where Eskimos lived hadfew plants that could be used tomake clothing, and almost all of theirgarments were made from animalskins. Sealskin was widely used, butother skins—including polar bear,reindeer, dog, caribou, moose, andeven fish, bird, or whale skin—wasused in some places. Seal huntersfrom Alaska, taken into slavery byRussia, wore semitransparent,waterproof shirts made from theintestines of sea animals, and used theinsides of seal gullets for leggings andboots.

Typical ClothingIn most places, both men and womenwore an anorak, a warm, waterproofcoat with a long tail at the back tomake sitting on the snow morecomfortable.The anorak was made ofsealskin in most places, but thepeople of Baffin Island, near theBering Straits, made theirs from driedstrips of seal or walrus intestinestitched together with sinew, andoften decorated with cormorant orauklet feathers.

Women of some groups would carrya small child in a large anorak hood,held safe by a harness attached to alarge button or toggle at the front ofthe anorak.

With the anorak, the Eskimo worethick trousers, usually made ofsealskin and always tucked into theboots. Sealskin was usually worn withthe fur on the inside, and for boots it

A hunter of theCaribou Eskimogroup, nearHudson Bay.

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Above: On the left,a woman'scostume madefrom sealskin andlined with fur. Onthe right, theman's sealskinoutfit has glovesmade from abear's paws, withthe claws stillattached.

Left: ThisEskimo childwears aminiatureversion of hermother’sclothing.

was drenched with oil to make itwaterproof. Socks could be madefrom woven grass.The outer trouserswere removed indoors, revealing apair of short pants made of cariboucalf skin.

Keeping the hands warm and drywhile working with snow andfreezing water was vital. In southwestAlaska, some people wore innermittens made of woven grass, andouter mittens made of fish skin.Others wore mittens made ofsquirrel, wolverine, polar bear, orcaribou fur. In Greenland, sealskinmittens had two thumbs so that theycould be turned around when thepalm became too wet.Whale hunters

in Greenland had anorak, trousers,mittens, and boots attached in asingle garment to keepout the freezingwater.

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Work ClothesEveryday Work WearFor many people, work dress neededonly to provide warmth andprotection.Their clothes had to berobust and practical, with nosweeping skirts or coattails that mightbecome trapped or torn.

Working MenMost working men in Europe worebreeches with stockings, a shirt, awaistcoat, and a jacket or coat.Thefabrics were often coarse linen orwool and there was little or noadornment. Many working peoplecontinued to wear breeches longafter trousers replaced them infashionable dress, though sailors andlaborers had worn trousers beforethey became fashionable.

Men in a wide range of occupationswore aprons, including carpenters,butchers, masons, and bakers.Thefabric was suited to the particularactivity, so a baker would wear acloth apron, but a blacksmith woreleather. Many men wore folded,

The high fashions discussed in the first chapter wereworn by wealthy people in Europe and America—

people who generally led a leisured life and did nostrenuous manual work. For everybody else, everydaydress had to allow them the freedom of movement theyneeded for their activities, as well as being hardwearingand affordable.This chapter will look at the clothespeople wore for different types of activity—for work,travel, battle, special occasions, and religious activity.

Chapter 3: Functional Fashions

An English fireman, fromaround 1800.

square paper hats of a type worn tothis day by some people working infood production.

Daniel Defoe, writing in the mid-1720s, describes men working in leadmines wearing clothes made entirelyof leather, with a brimless leather hat.Later illustrations show coal minerswearing flannel trousers and a shirtand waistcoat, often in impracticalcolors such as white, blue, or red.Women and children worked in themines, too. Records from the earlynineteenth century suggest thatminers often worked naked, or inonly ragged trousers or a shift.

Working WomenMany women worked in domesticservice as maids, cooks, and cleaners.In the country they wore skirtswithout paniers or hoops, oftenbunched up at the back to protectthem, and covered with an apron.They wore a mobcap, or “limp hood,”an indoor cap with a high, full crownand often tied under the chin.

In town, women in service weremore fashionably dressed.There werecomplaints that they became so

preoccupied with fashion that theywould not work properly for fear ofspoiling their clothes. Many wore alinen or calico dress, bunched in thepolonaise style, with a long, whiteapron and a muslin kerchief overtheir shoulders and chest.The skirtoften stopped at the ankle to allowmovement.When waistlines rosefor fashionable women, so didthose of their servants, so thattheir aprons were tied just belowthe bust.

Functional Fashions

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Secondhand ClothesSecondhand clothes were an important part of the clothing trade in the fashionable capitalsof Europe. Good quality, fashionable clothes were very expensive, and many people aspiredto wear finer clothes than they could afford, so there was a vigorous trade in secondhandgarments. Many servants were given cast-off clothes by their employers, which added to theimpression that servants were well dressed. Because the trade in secondhand clothes waslively, clothes and cloth were often stolen—they were easy to move, they could easily beresold, and were difficult to trace.

The slave child wearsextravagant clothing with aturban added to make himlook exotic. Many slaveswore a metal neckbandwith their owner's details.

An American housemaid.

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did not last long. Sailors whoseclothes became ragged could buynew clothes on credit from the slopchest.They carried needles andthread to mend their clothes andmany also seem to have decoratedthem, adding ribbons, appliqué, andembroidery. If a sailor died, hisclothing was immediately auctionedon deck.

RidingFor many people, the most commonform of transport was riding onhorseback. For the wealthier classesin England and France, riding wasalso a sport—a spectator sport in the

Traveling, especially by sea, wasdifficult and often dangerous in theeighteenth century. Clothing fortravel had to be warm and hardwearing.

SailorsSailors wore either their ownclothing or garments boughtfrom the “slop chest,” thesupplies carried by the ship.There was no naval uniform in

the early eighteenth century,though a blue jacket was introducedfor officers in the British navy in1748, and the American navyintroduced a full uniform in 1776.

On deck, sailors on large ships usuallywore loose-cut trousers in blue, red,white, or stripes, with a serge, duck,or flannel shirt worn open at theneck.The shirt was usually green orred and often checked, and had a low,unstarched collar. Over this, seamenwore a long waistcoat, often inyellow or red.Their trousers wereheld up with a knife belt or blackkerchief, and they wore a knottedkerchief around their necks.Theywore thick woolen stockings withflat, black shoes and a cap of fur orwool. For protection against badweather, the sailor could wear a longapron of oiled canvas and a heavyouter coat.

On land, sailors had to dress smartly.They often wore a short jacketbuttoned on the right; long, widetrousers; and a shirt in blue and whitestripes, or plain blue, white, or red.Because of the hard life at sea, clothes

Cloaks and CoatsAlthough cloaks and capes hadgone out of fashion for manyoccasions, they were still wornfor traveling. When peopletraveled on horseback or indrafty coaches, a cloak was auseful way of keeping warm.Traveling cloaks were wide andlong and were worn wrappedaround the body. They wereusually lined and made ofthick, woolen fabric. Overcoatswere also worn, often with ashort cape attached at theshoulders. In Americaparticularly, the overcoat wasmore popular than the cape. Itwas usually long and not fittedat the waist. Stagecoachdrivers always wore this box-shaped coat with a cape at the shoulders.

Seafaring and Traveling

Sailorswere one of the earliestgroups to wear trousers.

Functional Fashions

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Women's riding costumes borrowed from men's fashions. Thehairstyle, hat and coat in this portrait all recall men's fashions of theearly eighteenth century.

People wearing practical clothing for a tripin a hot-air balloon in 1785.

case of horse racing, or one in whichthey participated in the case ofhunting.

The move to a tailcoat for men inEuropean fashion was driven by thepopularity of the English ridingcostume.The coat was easy to ridein, because there was no long skirt atthe front to get in the way, and thedivided tails could fall on either sideof the horse. Even the earlierjustaucorps was pleated and split at thebacks and sides so that it fell easilyover the back of a horse.

Women’s riding gear produced thefashionable redingote style of dress.Much plainer than the very ornateFrench styles, this was well suited tomovement and the outdoors andcould be made in warm fabrics.

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American Puritanism and Plain DressingWhile many Americans followedEuropean fashions with enthusiasm, alarge, puritanical group shunned theirexcessive decoration. Collectivelyknow as plain people, the groupincluded the Quakers, Pietists orBrethren, Mennonites, and Amish.

Quakers The largest group embracing plaindress were the Quakers, centered inPhiladelphia, the capital of WilliamPenn’s Quaker colony.The Quakers

dominated the city for the entireeighteenth century.

Although their clothes werecompletely unadorned, with noembroidery, brocade, jewels, coloredfacings, or braid, many Quakers werevery wealthy and the fabrics theyused were often of fine quality.

In rejecting the excesses of fashion,the Quakers and other groups foundtheir own styles of plain dressing. Nopatterns were allowed, but“changeable” silks and worstedwools, with the warp one color andthe weft another, were very popular.They commonly wore muted, butnot necessarily drab, colors.Theircaps, shirts, aprons, and stockingswere white. Men wore a simple,white linen stock at the neck.

The cut of Quakers’ clothing was thesame as that worn by fashionablepeople, though usually several yearsbehind fashion. Linen was used forshirts, sometimes edged with a verysmall amount of lace. Quakers triedabove all else not to draw attentionto themselves, so they avoidedostentatious plainness as well asdecoration.

The AmishThe Amish arrived in America and settled around Pennsylvania in the middle and second halfof the eighteenth century. Their appearance and mode of dress were more puritanical thanthose of the Quakers and other plain people. Men wore their beards uncut and women did notcut their hair. Their clothes were homemade from hemp that they spun themselves. There wasno adornment or decoration, and all clothes had to be cut to the same approved styles. Thesestyles did not change and were unaffected by fashions in the rest of the world.

A Quaker couple in goodquality plain clothes.

Functional Fashions

and women dressed in drab colors(though these colors were alsofashionable among otherAmericans for a time).Women wore a bonnetwith a long tunnelledbrim, and their dress was oldfashioned in cut.

Hats and HairQuaker men wore their hats at alltimes, even indoors.These had a widebrim usually left straight, thoughsome men curved it up at the sides.The hat was covered with black silk.Most wore their own hair, which fellto the shoulders and was rarelypowdered. Quaker women wore theirhair pinned on top of the head andcovered with a cap or bonnet.

White QuakersA group following the lead of JohnWoolman (1720–72), known as thewhite Quakers, wore undyed clothes.Woolman objected to the use ofindigo dye because of theinvolvement of slave labor—as well asthe damage caused to theenvironment—in the production anddyeing processes.After some soul-searching,Woolman chose to foregoall colors.The decision was a difficultone because he felt that to dress inuncolored clothes could make himconspicuous:“the apprehension ofbeing looked upon as one affectingsingularity felt uneasy to me,” hewrote.

Distinctive DressToward the end of the eighteenthcentury, the Quakers’ style of dressbecame more distinctive.This perhapsoccurred because they wanted todistance themselves from otherreligious groups, and adopting a moreuniform dress helped them to forgean identity of their own.The mencontinued to wear breeches andstockings when more fashionablemen had adopted trousers. Both men

Although simple and undecorated, aQuaker wedding dress like this wasoften made from very fine fabric.

This Quaker man's coat issimpler and uses lessfabric than coats worn bymany men of the period.

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PioneersThe best-known pioneers werethose Americans who set out fromthe east coast to claim lands andmake a new life farther inland. Butother pioneers and explorers weremaking their way into Australia,South America, and the far northduring the eighteenth century.

The famous frontiersmanDaniel Boone escorting agroup of Americanpioneers in 1775.

Local ClothingExplorers and pioneers had to carrywith them anything that theyrequired for their journey or theirnew life.This meant there was littlespace for clothes, and most had tomake clothes as they went, or buyfrom local people.

American PioneersThe clothing of the Americanpioneers, like that of the nativeNorth Americans, was largely madeof buckskin.This was the skin ofdeer, usually “brain tanned” (treatedwith a mixture made from theanimal’s brains during the tanningprocess). Buckskin was used to makebreeches, moccasins, coats, and evenshirts. It was suitable for outdooractivity in a wild landscape because it did not get torn on undergrowthand branches, and was waterproof,warm, and flexible.

The Revolutionaries wore buckskinas a sign of patriotism, and GeorgeWashington ordered thousands ofbuckskin shirts and pairs of moccasinsfor his troops fighting against theEnglish. Buckskin soon becamefashionable in Europe, and buckskinbreeches were worn by the Englishupper classes for hunting and riding.

Heading NorthIn the eighteenth century, explorersrenewed their search for a NorthwestPassage—a northern route by seafrom Europe to the Pacific.Theexplorers who looked for it neededclothes to confront cold neverexperienced in Europe or America.

Functional Fashions

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The supply of clothes in earlyAustralia was inconsistent; localindustry was only just beginning andthere was no real currency until1813.These factors meant thatclothing was often in short supplyand some people wore their garmentsuntil they were ragged.

Christopher Middleton, who set outfrom Hudson Bay in 1742, listed theclothes his sailors wore: “a Beaver orSkin tuggy [calf-length coat], aboveour other Cloaths, Shoes of Deer-Skin, with three or four Socks ofthick Blanketting or warm Clothabove our Stockings; Mittens ofBeaver lined with Duffield or thickCloth; and a Beaver Cap with aChin Cloth which covers thegreatest Part of the Face.” Forcrossing the ice and snow, they used snowshoes made from thongsof deer skin.

AustraliaAustralia was settled by Europeansfrom 1788 onward. Many of thesettlers were either poor orconvicts.Wealthier colonists and ex-convicts followed European fashion,and clothing was imported fromIndia and Britain. Colors popularamong women were pale brown,olive, and yellow, sometimes calledthe “drab” style.

Australian ConvictsFrom the 1790s to the 1810s, convicts were issued with“slops”—cheap, ready-made clothing similar to that wornby the working class. They had short jackets, checkedfrock coats, checked shirts, untwilled cotton trousers,and hats of leather or felt. Women were issued withjackets, skirts, kerchiefs, caps, and hats. Most convicts’clothes were blue or grey. When stocks of clothes ran low, military uniforms were sometimes dyed and passedon to convicts. Those convicts who could afford to do sobought their own clothes.

The government increasingly wanted to distinguish betweenconvicts and free men, and one way of doing this was tomake the cut of their clothes different. Convicts wore loosetrousers rather than the more fashionable breeches.

Settlers in New SouthWales, Australia. Theirwide-brimmed hats protectthem from the sun andtheir trousers and shortjackets are suited toriding. Their aboriginalguides wear very little.

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Rural VersaillesThe court of Louis XVI in France, centered at Versailles, ledEuropean fashion in the latter half of the eighteenth century. Thequeen, Marie Antoinette, tried to recreate an idyllic rural life there,building a fake and idealized peasant village. She and the ladies atcourt dressed in what they imagined were peasant costumes,including dresses of fine muslins. Neither the village nor thecostumes were anything like those experienced by real peasants.

Rural Dress

An English man's smockwith an intricate pattern ofstitching (smocking) onthe back.

Although many people moved fromthe countryside to the towns duringthe eighteenth century, most stilllived in the countryside.Theirclothing was often coarser and morefunctional than court or town dress,but in many areas vividly decoratedtraditional, local costumes wereworn.

Farm LaborFarm workers needed hard-wearingclothes that would protect them from

the weather and would not getcaught on undergrowth or crops.They were usually very poor andtheir clothes were basic and oftenhomemade.

In England, men often wore asmock over trousers or breeches.This was a voluminous garment likea dress, with long sleeves and madefrom coarse linen. It was worn forleisure and work, though the endswere tucked out of the way forsome activities. Canvas or leathergaiters fastened around the lowerpart of the leg.

Women wore open or closed gowns,either made in one piece or with aseparate skirt and bodice. In winter,dresses were made of wool or camlot,a fabric made of a wool and hairmix; in summer, light-colored calicoor linen was used.The bodice wasmuch longer than that worn in townand was usually left undone from thewaist down. It did not always matchthe skirt.The polonaise style becamepopular in the countryside around1800 and remained in fashion formany decades because it was an easystyle for work, the skirt being held

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out of the way.A cloak was used forwarmth.

For some farm activities, the gown orskirt was removed and the petticoatwas pinned up in the style oftrousers, leaving the legs bare fromthe knee. Mining was the only otheractivity in which women commonlyworked without a gown.

Provincial FashionsThere were many variations inregional dress around Europe, withneighboring countries havingcompletely different styles oftraditional costume. In centralEurope—Germany,Austria, andSwitzerland—most women wore fullskirts somewhat shorter than thoseworn elsewhere, with a brightlyembroidered, laced bodice and white shirt.

Duck hunters on theVenetian lagoon. Therowers are wearing waistlength close-fittingjackets with a sidefastening.

Warmer ClimatesIn hot countries, many people whoworked the land wore no clothes, orvery few.A simple loincloth was oftenworn in India. In China, farmworkerswore a long shirt made of undyedhemp.The nomadic Himba people of southern Africa wore short skirts of animal hide, and red body paint,while the East African Dinka menwore only a belt of beads, color-coded to show their age.

The slaves who worked the sugar andcotton plantations in America oftenwore only a cotton shirt, or a shirtwith a skirt or trousers.Theiroverseers, who also felt the heat,often managed their plantationswearing a banyan, the dressing gownworn indoors when formal dress wasnot needed, and a decorated clothcap worn without a wig.

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Battle Clothing

An officer in the Americanarmy.

Military costumes had to be suitedboth to the climate and the type of activity soldiers expected toengage in. In many parts of theworld, armor was still used.Thedesign had to offer protection andallow freedom of movement.

In the West, armor was no longerworn because it offered noprotection against gunshot orcannon. Military uniforms weredesigned to distinguish betweenarmies and ranks and to allow thesoldier enough movement to use his firearms.

Military Uniforms inthe WestIn Europe and America, militaryuniform and men’s civilian dressevolved in parallel, sometimes onetaking the lead and sometimes theother.The change from justaucorps,breeches, and a long waistcoat, totight trousers with a short waistcoatand a coat with the front cut away,was essential to allow soldiers tomanipulate a rifle, especially whenfitted with a bayonet.

British soldiers began cutting awaytheir coattails during the Seven Years

SamuraiThe Japanese warrior classcalled the Samurai fought mostcommonly with swords. Thewarrior wore armor made ofplates of lacquered leather andmetal called kozane, heldtogether with leather or silkthongs. The main parts of thearmor were a breast plate andhelmet. There was often alsoprotection for the lower legs andfor the lower part of the leftarm, and occasionally a shortskirt that protected the upperlegs. The armor was worn over ashort kimono fastened with anobi. From the beginning of theeighteenth century, the samuraiwore padded armor made ofbamboo and cotton whenpracticing and training inswordsmanship.

Samurai armor.

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43

War in America (1756–63), to avoidbecoming caught on undergrowth.Short-skirted coats became officialwear for the rank and file from 1797,and for officers from 1812.Americanarmy officers had a greatcoat or cloakfor warmth, but ordinary soldiersmanaged with a Dutch blanket.

Eastern BattleCostumeMany developed nations, such asJapan, India, and the OttomanEmpire, did not have firearms in theeighteenth century and their soldiersstill wore armor, which was oftenvery ornate and even beautiful.Armor could be adorned with jewelsor enamelling on the metal, or withembroidery on velvet bands orleather, or painting and gilding onleatherwork.

Much armor was made of jointedplates of leather or metal, or acombination of both.The plates were either held together withthongs or stitched to a cloth backing. Overlapping plates wereoften used to protect against arrows,which might pierce even small gaps.In some places, chain mail, made of many small, metal links, was still used.

Sikh soldiers in northern India worea chain-mail shirt with a large metalplate in back and front to protect thechest, metal panels over the lowerarms, and a metal helmet.The neckwas protected by a chain-mail hoodbeneath the helmet. Chain mail wasmuch more flexible than plate armor.

Tribal Battle Gear Many tribes were ingenious in theiruse of local materials to makeprotective armor. Native NorthAmericans used wooden slats heldtogether with leather thongs. InBaffin Island, hoops of doubledsealskin were stitched together into atelescopic funnel shape that could belifted up and tied at the waist forrunning. In southwest Alaska,plates of bone or walrusivory were laced togetherwith sinew into anarmored vest.

A Chinese Tiger ofWar. Each formationof soldiers on thebattlefield was led bya ten nai, or tigerman, dressed inyellow and blackstripes and a hoodwith tiger ears.

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Religious Clothing

A religious robe made ofelm bark fiber, worn by theAinu aborigine group inJapan.

Christians.A cope, or semicircularcape, was also worn on someoccasions.The chasuble and copewere both decorated with coloredand gold embroidery in designs withsymbolic meanings.A large numberof other symbolic garments andaccessories were also worn.Verysimilar vestments are worn today.

Protestant Reform churches shunnedornate vestments, and most preacherswore simple robes of black, oftenwith a white surplice and a whitestock at the neck.

Japanese Buddhist priests wore arobe called a kesa, made up from

seven to twenty-five panelsstitched into a rectangularpatchwork.This was draped

under the left arm and fastenedby two corners on the rightshoulder. Because the priest hadtaken a vow of poverty, the kesawas made of discarded rags ordonated fabrics. However, it wasoften made of very ornate clothand could look richly decorated,because donors frequently gave

scraps of fine but damaged clothes asofferings. In China, a similar style ofrobe was often worn.This wasfrequently beautifully embroideredor made of brocade as a singlegarment, rather than a patchwork.

Monks and NunsMonks and nuns in Europe worelong, simple robes of plain, dullcolors, the exact color and styledepending on the monastic order.The habit was made of coarse or

In most religions, the priests whoconduct religious ceremonies weardistinctive costumes.These may beeither ornate or very simple. Monksand nuns usually wear clothes designedto encourage humility and avoid pride.Some religions, such as Islam, also havedress codes which control the clothingof ordinary people.

Priests In the Catholic Church, priests woreornate, embroidered garments(vestments) for mass.These includeda long, close-fitting linen robe calledan alb, covered with a chasuble, akind of sleeveless tunic based on theday-to-day wear of the very early

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down in Muslim law. For this reason,men and women all over these areasand in parts of India wore loosetrousers and a long shift.Womenfrequently kept their heads veiledwhen outdoors.

(See pages 36–37 for information onthe dress of the Quakers and Amish.)

plain cloth and sometimes had ahood or cowl. Nuns often wore veilsover their heads and some coveredtheir faces.

Hindu and Buddhist monks dressedsimply, but in clothes that were betteradapted to hot weather. Jain monkswore either a white robe and a facemask to prevent them from inhalinginsects, or wore nothing at all—theDigambara called themselves “sky-clad” because they were clothed onlyin the air. Elderly Hindu monks woretattered orange robes, given ordiscarded by others.

Religious Codes ofDressSome religions had codes of dress foreverybody, not just those who ledceremonies and religious meetings.The dress worn in most MiddleEastern countries and many parts ofNorth Africa followed the code set

The Gown of RepentanceIn Scotland, people condemned as sinners weresometimes punished by being forced to wear a “gown ofrepentance” in public on Sundays. This was a verycoarse, plain T-shaped garment made of sackcloth. Ithad sleeves that came to the elbow, and wascompletely unshaped.

Most often, it was women who had committed adulteryor had pre-marital sex who were forced to wear it. Theyhad to appear at church, or at the church door, for astipulated number of weeks. This encouraged a sense of shame.

French Benedictine nuns inthe abbey of Port-Royale,1710.

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Celebration Wear

A woman's wedding coatmade of salmon skin, fromthe Amur Basin, Russia.

People have always dressed in specialcostumes for celebrations andimportant occasions. Sometimes,clothes for special events are moreornate, or just clean or new versionsof everyday costumes, but sometimesthey are completely different.

EuropeCourt dress in Europe, and clothesfor special occasions in America,followed fashion, but used moreelaborate fabrics and decoration.Men’s coats and waistcoats, forinstance, would be cut from finebrocades, or decorated with intricateembroidery and even precious stones.

In Europe, the extravagant style ofwide paniers and decorated dressescontinued to be worn for courtoccasions for several years after thesefashions had disappeared fromeveryday wear.

Stages of LifeDifferent clothes were often worn foran event that celebrated a transitionin life, such as the passage intoadulthood or marriage.

Christening marks a child’s entry intothe Christian community, and ornatechristening robes were worn inEurope. George III of England’sdaughter wore a white satin mantleedged with ermine and adorned withmany precious stones.

Wedding Colors Poorer English brides wore simpledresses—often one they alreadyowned. However, the wealthy hadextravagant gowns made, usually inblue, silver, or white, though yellowand gold were also popular.Therewere many local variations inwedding dress around Europe,especially in rural areas where

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mainstream fashions had little impact.In Athens, brides gilded their faceswith gold for the wedding day. InIndia, China, and many Islamiccountries, red was (and is) thetraditional color for a bride’s clothes.

Funeral and MourningGarbMost cultures have special rituals andclothing for funerals, and many havespecial clothing for a period ofmourning after the funeral.Whitewas the color of mourning and wasworn for funerals in China and Japan,while black was worn in France,England, and America.

In England, mourners were given ablack scarf that was worn diagonallyover the left shoulder, a black hatband and gloves, and an engravedring. Mourners wore black for sixweeks or more and then switched toa less rigorous mourning code for afurther period.

In Tahiti, an elaborate mourningceremony was led by a chiefmourner in a voluminous costumewith a breastplate and mask.Themask was made of turtle and pearlshell, with a fringe of frigate birdfeathers.The breastplate was made ofpearl shell and was worn with apearl-shell apron. Beneath, the chiefmourner wore many layers ofbarkcloth tunics dyed red, brown, andyellow. More barkcloth was wrappedaround the head and used for adecorated cape.The cords used tohold on the mask and keep thebindings around the head were made

Coronation of Napoleon BonaparteNot long after the French Revolution had swept awayornate fashions, Napoleon was crowned emperor ofFrance in a magnificent ceremony in 1804. The robesworn to his coronation were extravagant and beautiful.The women wore fine silk gowns with ornatelydecorated overgowns of velvet and silk brocades, allrichly decorated with embroidery, pearls, and jewels.Male costumes, designed by the painter Jacques LouisDavid, were cut from gold and silver brocade. Both menand women wore long, decorated velvet capes andjeweled crowns.

of human hair.The costume was usedto mark the end of the funerary ritesof a highborn islander until around1810, when Christianity replacedmany indigenous rituals.

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Acomplete outfit consists not just of outer clothes but also ofunderwear, shoes, accessories, and—in some times and places—hats,

wigs, veils, or masks. In Europe and America, many additional items madeup a complete set of clothes. Elsewhere, where few clothes were worn,body adornment and modification were often more important than extraitems of dress.

Chapter 4: Not Just Clothes

A mask used duringceremonies by membersof the Mohawk tribe.

Masks andVeilsMasks were worn for many reasonsin different parts of the world during

the eighteenth century, as at othertimes. Some were worn to giveanonymity. Others were worn toscare enemies or evil spirits, or toforge a link with an animal or othernatural spirit.Veils were frequentlyworn for modesty, to preserve virtue,or to hide a woman from men’s eyes.

Frightening MasksWarriors from tribes in Africa, Northand South America, and some of thePacific islands often wore frighteningmasks of human, animal, or monsterfaces to scare enemies.These wereoften made of plant products such asbark, wood, or woven leaves or grassstalks, and could be decorated withdyes, feathers, bones, or shells.

Shamans often wore frighteningmasks to scare away evil spirits.Theymight also be intended to hide theidentity of the man himself, either forprotection or to allow bettercommunication with the spirits.

Riding MasksWomen in America wore masks toprotect their faces while out riding.In the summer, the mask kept outthe heat of the sun; in the winter itoffered protection against the cold;and at all times it shielded thewoman from the gaze of men.Winter

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masks were usually made of blackvelvet and were held in place by asilver mouthpiece. In summer, greensilk was used.Young girls had a whitelinen mask, held on with ribbons ortapes tied under their hood.

VeilsIn many parts of the world,women—particularly unmarriedwomen—wore veils covering eitherthe head or face, or both. Islamic lawin many parts of the Middle East andCentral Asia required that womenkeep their faces covered whenoutdoors.Among Christian women,some nuns kept their faces veiled as asign of modesty, to avoid lustfullooks, and to prevent them fromtaking pride in their appearance.

Women in India often wore the endof the sari draped over the head inthe form of a veil. In parts of Russia,

Not Just Clothes

women wore a veil falling from thetop of their hat (see page 19). InSpain, women wore a mantilla, a laceveil or shawl worn over the head andshoulders, held up with a decorativecomb. In some cultures, a bride worea veil which was not removed untilafter the marriage ceremony, whenher new husband could look at herface for the first time.

Carnival MasksOrnate or very plain masks were used at carnivals andcelebrations in different places. In Venice, wherecarnival lasted from December or earlier until ShroveTuesday, people wore masks to hide their identitieswhile they took part in balls and amused themselves.A black cloak, tricorn hat, and white or black maskcould also be worn from October to December and onfeast days, so for nearly half the year Venetians couldgo in cognito, enjoying all of the freedoms thatanonymity allowed.

Venetian carnival-goerswearing masks.

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Undergarments and Nightwear

Here, the woman'sunderskirt and shift areclearly visible. Herstockings come just to theknee.

In many parts of the world, peoplewore no underwear, or a simplecloth fastened around the groinunder their clothes. In Europe andAmerica, underwear was welldeveloped, especially for women.

The ShiftThe basic shift, or chemise, was theprincipal undergarment for men andwomen in Europe and America. Itwas of a simple shape, with longsleeves and either a collar and cuffs or

Rice Straw VestsChinese farmers and coolies wore a knitted sleeveless vest made oftwisted rice straw fibers. It opened down the front and fastened atthe top and the waist with a loop and ball button. Panels of double-thickness hemp or cotton at the back and the shoulders preventedrubbing when the man was carrying a heavy load.

Some Chinese men wore a vest made of tiny pieces of hollowbamboo sewn together in a diamond pattern. This sometimes hadsleeves. It was worn in the summer to prevent the shirt or jacketfrom sticking to the skin. A thin cotton band at the edges preventedthe bamboo from cutting into the body. The lower undergarment wasa loincloth held in place by a belt.

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a drawstring at the neck. It was wornboth night and day.Those who couldafford it wore a linen shift; othersmight use cotton, calico, or hemp.

For men, the cuffs and collar werevisible beneath their outerwear, andthese were frequently decorated withfrills and lace.Women’s shifts wererarely seen, except perhaps at theneck. During the course of theeighteenth century, the sleeves ofwomen’s shifts became shorter. Laceor frills at the cuff of the gown were often attached directly to thegown and no longer formed part ofthe shift.

StaysWomen—and, occasionally, men—wore stays to shape the upper part ofthe body.They were made fromseveral layers of stout canvas, cotton,or linen twill, which was stiffenedfirst with paste and then with cords,canes, or whalebone to mold theshape. Stays were worn over the shift,fastened with laces at the back, andsometimes also at the front. Peoplewho were especially large, orpregnant, had side laces. Help from amaid, family member, or valet wasessential in putting on and lacing upstays.Among the upper classes, evenchildren wore stays, because it wasthought to improve their posture and encourage their bodies to grow straight.

PetticoatsPetticoat, in the eighteenth century,meant a skirt that was worn beneathan open skirt or gown and was

Not Just Clothes

visible at the front. Petticoats asunderwear, or underskirts, came tothe knee or mid-calf and wereusually made of cotton or linen.Theywere worn over the shift.Thispetticoat did not show and was notusually decorated. For warmth, and tohelp support wide skirts, womenwore quilted underskirts.These weremade from two layers of silk with alayer of wool in between. Poorerwomen could only afford flannelunderskirts. Under the shift dresses ofthe late eighteenth century, a full-length undergarment of fine cottonor flesh-colored stockinette wassometimes worn.

DrawersDrawers were not common forwomen before 1830, but men worethem throughout the eighteenthcentury.They were made from twotubes of fabric, stitchedonto a wide waistband,laced at the back andfastened with ties.Some women woreflesh-colored drawersunder the moretransparent shiftdresses, but themerveilleuses tookthe oppositeapproach,wearing nounderwear.

A maid lacing up awoman's stays overher shift.

Foot BindingIn China, most well-off women had bound feet. Thispractice had already been going on for hundreds ofyears. When a girl was between three and five years old,her feet would be bound so that they would remainsmall. Binding involved bending the toes under the foottoward the heel and binding them tightly with a bindingcloth so that the toes were broken and the foot grew asa deformed hook. The ideal size of adult women’s feetwas five inches (13 cm), or three Chinese inches.Walking was difficult and extremely painful. Women kepttheir bound feet covered at all times, even wearingspecial red silk slippers in bed, often with bells in thetoes. During the day they wore bindings, socks, andbeautifully embroidered silk shoes.

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Footwear

Woman's shoes, 1735. The fabric probably matched the woman's dress.

In Europe and America, fashions infootwear changed radically duringthe eighteenth century. Elsewhere,however, most footwear wasutilitarian—designed to protect thefeet from the weather and theground—and styles changed little. Insome hot countries, people wore noshoes.

Fashionable Women’sFootwear in EuropeFashionable women in Europe beganthe eighteenth century in shoes withheels, often made of leather orcovered with fabric to match theirdresses. Indoors, they wore slippers or

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Not Just Clothes

wore colored silk stockings in pink,yellow, sky blue, and lilac.

Work WearFor working in the fields and wetplaces, both men andwomen wore wooden-soled clogs. Men couldalso wear heavyleather shoes forwork, reinforced withmetal in the form ofhobnails (nails in thesoles) or metal bandsthat looked similar to ahorseshoe.Wooden blocksor metal supports called pattens couldbe strapped onto the bottom ofordinary shoes to keep them clear ofmud or water.

mules, again with heels and usuallymatched to their dresses. By the endof the century, the heel haddisappeared and shoes were delicateleather slippers suited to the slimmerand more elegant dresses. Somewomen wore shoes modeled on theRoman buskin, a kind of lacedsandal, to go with their classical-styleshifts.

Fashionable Men’sFootwearAt the start of the century, men woreleather shoes with high heels andbuckles.As the century progressed,the buckles became more ornate andlarger and could be decorated withprecious or semiprecious stones.Fashionable heels were red. InFrance, red heels were traditionally asign of nobility.

In the later part of the century, bootsbecame fashionable, both full-lengthto the knee or short with a pointedfront. In the early nineteenth century,trousers were sometimes worn overboots.

StockingsBoth men and women worestockings.These were made of silkfor the wealthy, and wool or cottonfor others. Made by hand at thebeginning of the century, they werelater frame-knitted, a technologicaladvance that enabled the productionof fine, shaped stockings and theinclusion of patterns in the design.Striped or even zigzag-patternedstockings were popular at the end ofthe century.The Macaroni often

Two types of patten,designed to keep thewearer's feet out of wateror mud.

Outside EuropeA wide range of materials were usedfor making footwear outside Europe.People living near the Amazon woresimple sandals called ojatas with solesof tapir hide and rope loops aroundthe toes. Chinese farmers madesandals from rice straw. Native NorthAmericans and colonial trappers woremoccasins made of the tanned hidesof moose or deer. Eskimos woreboots made from sealskin.

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Wigs and Hair

A woman's tall hairstyleor wig was oftendecorated with feathers,jewels, or a small hatbalanced on the top.

In Europe, fashionable people worewigs throughout much of theeighteenth century, though real hairwas in fashion at the end of thecentury.

Men’s WigsFor the first three quarters of theeighteenth century, men shaved theirheads and wore wigs.At the start ofthe century, the full-bottomed wigwas popular.This had curls arrangedin peaks on either side of the headand then fell down over the back andshoulders.Wigs were covered withpomatum (a kind of grease) and thenwith white, grey, or pale blue powder.

Later, wigs became shorter and wereoften tied back in a pigtail or bag.Afrizzy or rolled wig that came to theshoulders, called a bob, was popularwith professionals.The smallest werescratch wigs and cut wigs, worn byworking people.The dandies of the1770s wore a style known as the“club” with high rolls at the front ofthe head and the tail folded andlooped back on itself.

Real Hair Wigs finally went out of fashion inEngland when a tax of a guinea ayear (about a week’s wage for atradesman) was imposed for usingpowder. In the third quarter of theeighteenth century, men often wore ashaggy haircut, sometimes stillpowdered. Some women wore theirhair cropped to the neck for a while,said to have been out of sympathy forthe beheaded victims of theguillotine. Later, natural hair wasworn in short curls.

Women’s WigsFrom around 1760, women’shairstyles started to rise, aided withpadding and pomade. During the1770s, women teased their hair intoincreasingly extravagant styles builtup over a wire framework with theaddition of fake hair, wool, and evenhay to make it larger. Hair wasarranged with a complex collectionof jewels, ribbons, lace, feathers, andother decorations—even blown glasshorses pulling carriages made ofwire! Women kept their styles in

Manufacture of WigsThe best wigs were made of real human hair. Because this was veryexpensive, and in limited supply, there were many alternatives. Wigscould be made of horse hair, goat hair, yak hair, silk, or evenfeathers. Horace Walpole, an English writer and art collector, wrote to a friend about a wire wig he had bought: “you literally would notknow it from hair.”

A full wig made with real hair could cost as much as thirty or fortypounds (as much as a tailor might earn in nine months). If robbersattacked a man in the street, they were likely to take his wig.

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century.To protect the largesthairstyles, they wore voluminoushooded capes outdoors.

Indoors, women usually wore amuslin or lace cap, usually withlappets—hanging bands of fabric orlace that could be tied under thechin or above the head but wereoften left loose.

place for several days and even hadspecial jeweled sticks with which todislodge vermin from them.Thehighest European styles were notworn in America.

HatsFor men, the tricorn hat dominatedthe first three quarters of theeighteenth century.A triangular hatwith the brim turned up, adjusted bycords, it was usually decorated withbraid and often feathers. Late in thecentury, a tall beaver hat becamepopular.This was round, with a tallcrown and small brim sometimesrolled toward the crown. It eventuallydeveloped into the top hat.Women wore very large hatsdecorated with feathers, ribbons, andveils in the second half of the

Not Just Clothes

Men's wigs came in a variety of styles.

Caricaturists made fun of themost flamboyant styles.

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AccessoriesDuring the eighteenth century, mostaccessories had some practicalfunction, but their precise form wasdictated by fashion and so sometimestheir design detracted from theirusefulness.

Umbrellas andParasols Ceremonial umbrellas were carriedto honor rulers and religious figures

in the Far East, India, and evenEurope, where ceremonialumbrellas were carried inprocession before and after the

pope.

Umbrellas were only adoptedfor practical use in England inthe second half of theeighteenth century. Somepeople scorned them,saying they showed thatthe owner could not afforda carriage. However, theybecame very popular—so

popular, in fact, thatsoldiers took them intobattle and Wellingtoncomplained abouttheir inappropriateuse.

While umbrellaswere intended tokeep the rain off,parasols were forprotection fromthe sun.Parasols wereused in France

from early in thecentury, but in

Britain and America only from the1770s onward.

HandbagsUntil the late eighteenth century,pockets attached to tapes tied at thewaist were worn under the panierand underskirt, reached through slitsin the overskirt. Handbags, calledreticules, became necessary at the endof the century when dresses had noroom for pockets underneath.

Before the reticule appeared, purseswere used.These were long bagsmade of netting that could be carriedover the arm, hanging down oneither side. Money was kept in eachof the hanging sides.There was a slitfor putting money into the purse, anda slider to secure it.The weight ofthe contents kept the double-endedpurse in place over the arm.

Mittens and MuffsAs well as gloves to keep the handswarm, people could use mittens ormuffs. Mittens are gloves with nofingers.They covered the back of thehand and the palm, but left thefingers free.When worn as a fashionaccessory, the flap over the back ofthe hand could be turned back andwas sometimes lined in a contrastingcolor. Mittens were also worn byworking people because they left thefingers free for work.

A muff is a tube of fabric, usually fur,used to keep the hands warm byputting one hand into each openend. Muffs were used by bothwomen and men.They became very

A fur muff and fur-trimmedpelisse.

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CanesMen often carried canes, and manyhad very ornate handles whichsometimes unscrewed to hold scentor a mirror. From the 1730s onward,there was a fashion for very longcanes. Until around 1780, menusually wore swords in scabbards, too.

large between 1730 and 1750, andoften had pockets inside. Muffs weremade of fur, feathers, or velvet, oftenscented, and might be hung from acoat button, belt, or from the neck by a ribbon. Pairs of small wristmuffs, called muffettes, were worn in the 1740s.

The Language of FansFans were popular with men and women and came in a wide range of designs. They wereoften highly decorated and very ornate. Some concealed information the user might want torefer to or perhaps learn, such as the words of a song, a sequence of dance steps, or acalendar of saints’ days.

In Europe and America, the way a fan was held or moved could send a message. Thelanguage of fans was most fully developed in Spain, where around sixty phrases could beconveyed with a fan, including arranging a time to meet and indicating the passionateintensity of kissing a woman expected.

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Costume was often supplemented—oreven replaced—by various kinds ofbody decoration.A richly tattooed orscarred person was often highlyrespected because they had undergonepain to acquire their decoration.

Body DecorationMany tribes in South America andthe Pacific wore body paint, ordecorated their bodies with tattoos.Reddish-brown henna was used topaint intricate designs on the skin inmany parts of Africa, the Middle East,and India. Other temporary colorsused in many places were ocher(yellow) and kaolin (white), oftenmixed to a thick mud or clay.TheAmazonian tribes in South Americapainted most of their bodies in black,purple, or blue and added highlightsin yellow and red.

Tattooing involves puncturing theskin and drawing a design using plantor mineral coloring in the lowerlayers of skin where it will bepreserved for life. Pacific islandersperfected tattooing in the eighteenthcentury.The patterns they used and

Criminal Tattoos in JapanTattooing replaced amputation of ears and noses as a punishment for Japanese criminals inthe eighteenth century, and continued until 1870. For each crime, the criminal received aring tattoo on one arm, or a character tattoo on the forehead. This practice gave rise to acriminal underclass who were easily identifiable by their tattoos, and who organizedthemselves into gangs.

Tattoos were also worn by firemen, seen as dashing heroes in Edo-period Japan. It isthought that wealthy merchants, who were barred from wearing the ornate, decoratedkimonos reserved for the aristocracy, secretly adorned themselves with hidden tattoos.

Adornment

A man from New Zealand, with decorative tattoos.

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the parts of the body tattooed variedfrom one island group to another.

Among dark-skinned tribes in Africa,scarification was popular (effectivetattooing was not possible on verydark skin).This involved scratching orcutting the skin in patterns,sometimes rubbing a plant extract orash into the wounds, to make scartissue form in raised designs thatlasted a lifetime.

The designs used for body painting,tattoos, and scarification were oftensymbolic or magical.

PiercingPiercing involves making a hole inpart of the body through whichsome kind of decoration can beworn. In New Zealand, men hadholes in their ears the diameter of afinger and threaded these with bones,feathers, twigs, and colored cloth. InNew South Wales, men wore bonesthrough a hole in the nose. Sometribes in South America used labets,large discs held in the lower lip.

European TechniquesIn Europe and America, women’sbody shapes were most dramaticallychanged by wearing hoops andpaniers, and padding over the bottomcalled “false rumps." Men used paddedcalves to make their legs look better inbreeches, and men and womenslimmed their waists with stays.

Both men and women used a toxicpaste of white lead to whiten theface, then reddened their cheeks and

Not Just Clothes

lips. Eyebrows were carefullytrimmed into shape or could beshaved off and replaced with fakeeyebrows made of mouse fur.

Patches made of black silk or velvetin many shapes were worn on theface to highlight the beauty of paleskin.They were probably usedoriginally to hide smallpox scars.

In 1770 a law was passed in Englandto punish women who lured meninto marriage by using too manyfalse aids, such as wigs, make up andpadding to make themselves lookmore beautiful than they really were.

This woman wears apattern of beauty marks onher cheek.

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Timeline1708–16 A series of laws is passed banning

the import of printed silk textiles into England.

1709 Paniers emerge in England, and a few years later in France.

1730 The frock emerges as the undress coat for fashionable men. Before this it was worn only by working men.

1733 The invention of the flying shuttle means that wide cloth can be produced for the first time.

1745 Indigo, used for a deep blue dye, is grown commercially in England, laterbecoming cheaper than indigo imported from the East Indies.

1757 Copperplate printing is invented,enabling the production of high-quality color printing on fabric.

1759 Emperor Qianlong passes sumptuarylaws in China, determining the permitted designs for robes for all occasions.

1759 The legalization of printing on cottonin France and England.

1762 The publication of Emile by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, a novel which popularizes new ideas about the nature of childhood and childrearing,and contributes greatly to the changein the way children in Europe are dressed.

1764 The invention of the spinning jenny mechanizes spinning, so that eight threads can be spun at once.

1770s An increase in the range of chemical-and mineral-based dyes used in the West.

1770s The widespread adoption of military and naval uniforms by major Westernpowers.

1775 The American Revolution cuts tradinglinks between Britain and America and forges stronger links between America and France; European fashion is influenced by sympathy forthe American Revolutionaries.

1776 In Poland and Austria a law is passeddictating the colors of kontush that must be worn in different districts.

1779 The invention of the spinning mule further develops mechanized spinning, giving greater control over the process and enabling many different types of fabric to be created.

1786 The beginning of the commercial useof bleaching with chlorine to make white cotton.

1787 The beginning of the move to abolishslavery in Britain, with the formation of the Society for the Abolition of theSlave Trade. Slaves were widely usedin the cotton plantations in the southern United States.

1789 The French Revolution: the overthrowof the French aristocracy ends extravagant fashion and throws the clothing industry into crisis. Fashionsshow sympathy for the Revolutionaries,with the trousers worn by the sans-culottes becoming popular for the first time among fashionable people.

1789 Boned corsets are banned by law in France because they are thought to damage health.

1795 Wig powder is taxed in England.1795 Women’s shift dress becomes

popular, with a slim line, no padding,high waist, and sheer fabrics.

1798 The publication of The CountryDyers Assistant by Asa Ellis in theUnited States teaches women todye the cloth they are producing at home.

1811 The Luddite Revolt: Englishweavers, plunged into poverty bythe mechanization of weaving andknitting, smash weaving frames to protest their treatment by thecloth industry.

1825 Large-scale commercial printing on calico begins in the United States.

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Glossaryà la française A very flamboyant style of dresswith a wide skirt and decorated underskirt, wornover a hoop or panier to make the skirt stand out.à l’anglaise A soft, rounded style of dress withless ornamentation than French styles. It wasworn with padding to give it shape.à la polonaise A style of ankle-length dress inwhich the overskirt is bunched up at the backand sides and open at the front. amulet A charm to protect the wearer from evil.banyan A loose indoor coat like a dressinggown, worn for casual dress by men.beaver A tall, round hat with a small brim,originally made of beaver fur.bodice Covering for the upper part of the body,often sleeveless and tightly fastened at the frontor back, or both.boned Stiffened with whalebone or wooden rods.breechcloth Cloth worn tied or fastened aroundthe waist to cover the groin.breeches Men’s pants that stop just below theknee.breeching A ceremony to mark a young boy’stransition from wearing children’s dress towearing breeches or trousers.brocade A fabric woven with raised patterns,often including gold or silver thread.caftan A long, loose coat worn in many MiddleEastern countries.calico Cotton cloth, often unbleached.chemise A long shift, often with sleeves.cravat A frill of lace or fine fabric worn at the neck.damask Figured or textured silk, in which thepattern is woven into the fabric.dandy A man who is careful of his appearance,wearing fine clothes and makeup.Empire line A slim-line dress with a raisedwaistline just below the bust.epaulet An ornamental shoulder piece.fez A round felt hat with no brim, worn in Turkeyand other Middle Eastern areas.forehead piece A piece of cloth worn under acap to cover the forehead.frock coat An informal man’s coat.

garter A band to hold up stockings, oftenfastened with a buckle.gauze A thin, transparent fabric, usually made ofsilk or cotton.hoop A framework to support a skirt, made ofwire, wood, or whalebone hoops.indigo A plant-based dye that produces a deepblue coloring.justaucorps A man’s coat worn in the first halfof the eighteenth century. It came to the kneeand had wide skirts and wide cuffs.kerchief A square of fabric that could be wornaround the neck, over the head or shoulders, ortied at the waist.kimono A long Japanese robe with wide sleeves,closed by wrapping over and securing with asash.loincloth A cloth tied around the waist andgroin.Macaroni A fashionable man in the 1770s whowore extravagant clothes, makeup, and wigs.mantilla A Spanish lace stole worn over the head.merveilleuses A group of French women at theend of the eighteenth century who wore flimsy,transparent shift dresses.mittens In European court wear: gloves with nofingers, but a flap over the back of the hand. Incold regions: gloves which have a singlecompartment for all of the fingers and another forthe thumb.mobcap A woman’s round cap, usually made ofcotton or linen, that covers the whole head andwas often worn for indoor work.muslin A very fine cotton cloth.overgown A dress worn over a shift and anunderskirt, which is usually visible.panier A framework to support a skirt, made oftiered hoops of wire, wood, or whalebone.pantaloons Ankle-length trousers like breeches.pelisse A woman’s mantle or wide coat, oftentrimmed with fur and usually hooded.plain dress An unadorned style favored byQuakers and some other religious groups inAmerica.

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quillwork Decoration made of porcupine quillsfastened onto fabric.redingote A style of dress developed from theriding habit. The dress looks like a floor-lengthcoat, with a fitted waist.sack dress A loose dress with folds of fabrichanging from the top of the bodice at the back.sans-culottes The revolutionary French of thelower and middle classes who wore trousersrather than breeches.shaman A witch doctor or priest claiming to havecontact with gods or spirits.shift dress A thin, unshaped dress popular atthe end of the eighteenth century.shuttle A weaving implement used to carry weftthread over and under the warp threads.spencer A short jacket worn mostly by women.stays A bodice made of stiffened fabric andwood or bone struts used to shape the body.stock A stiffened band of fabric worn at theneck.stomacher A decorated triangle of fabric wornover the front of the bodice of a dress, coveringthe fastenings of the bodice.swaddling A tight wrapping of babies in strips offabric.taffeta A plain-woven silk with a dull appearanceproduced by leaving the natural gum of the silkintact.tailcoat A man’s coat with two long “tails” at theback but cut away to the waist at the front.train A length of fabric that extends at the back of a dress.tricorn hat A three-pointed hat with a turned-upbrim.turban A length of fabric worn wrapped aroundthe head, especially by Muslim, Sikh, and Hindumen, but adopted as a fashion in Europe in theeighteenth century.underskirt A skirt worn under an open gown sothat it is visible at the front. The underskirt is notpart of the underwear and was often ornatelydecorated.vent A slit in the sides or back of a coat, jacket,or waistcoat.

Further InformationGeneral Reference SourcesBourhis, Katell le, et al. (ed.), The Age ofNapoleon: Costume from Revolution to Empire, 1789-1815 (Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1989)Buck, Anne, Clothes and the Child (Ruth BeanPublishers, 1996)Cumming, Valerie, and Ribeiro, Aileen, The VisualHistory of Costume (B. T. Batsford Ltd, 1998)Cumming, Valerie, The Visual History ofCostume Accessories (B. T. Batsford Ltd, 1998)Cunnington, Phillis, and Willett, C., Handbookof English Costume in the Eighteenth Century(Faber and Faber, 1964)Dubin, Lois Sherr, North American IndianJewelry and Adornment (Henry N. Abrams, 1999)Garrett, Valery, Chinese Clothing (OxfordUniversity Press, 1994)Gorsline, Douglas, History of Fashion: A VisualSurvey of Costume from Ancient Times(Fitzhouse Books, 1991)Hart, Avril, and North, Susan, Historical Fashionin Detail: The Seventeenth and EighteenthCenturies (V & A Publications, 1998)Racinet, Albert, The Historical Encyclopaedia ofCostume (Studio Editions, 1988)Sichel, Marion, History of Women's Costume(Batsford Academic and Educational, 1984)Sichel, Marion, History of Men's Costume(Batsford Academic and Educational, 1984)Sichel, Marion, History of Children's Costume(Batsford Academic and Educational, 1983)Wykes-Joyce, Max, Cosmetics and Adornment(Peter Owen, 1961)

Internet Resourceshttp://dept.kent.edu/museum/costume/index.asp“A Visual Dictionary of Fashion.” A largecollection of photos and paintings showingcostumes worn by men, women, and childrenfrom the eighteenth to twentieth centuries.Organized by time, geographical area, andsubject.

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www.marquise.de/en/1700/index.shtmlA detailed study of eighteenth-centurycostume in western Europe. There are guidedtours to women’s and men’s fashions,information on hairstyles, cosmetics, andhow to make eighteenth-century costume.The author has a particular interest in usingart as a source for the study of historicalcostume, and a large number of paintings is included.

http://hal.ucr.edu/~cathy/reg3.html“The Regency Fashion Page." Mostly Englishand French fashion plates from the Regencyperiod (late eighteenth and early nineteenthcenturies), but also portraits. As well asmainstream fashions, there are sections onspecial areas such as bathing costumes,turbans, underwear, court dress, and shoes.Emphasis is placed on showing contemporaryillustration and there is little explanation ofthe styles or history.

www.englishcountrydancing.org/A hugely detailed account of English, French,and American costume, decade by decade, formen and women. Illustrated mostly with clear,black-and-white line art drawings.

http://www.costumes.org/history/100pages/18thlinks.htmA comprehensive set of links to resources oneighteenth-century fashion, includingaccessories and cosmetics. It includespeasant and work clothes, theatrical dress,textiles, and patterns.

http://www.18cnewenglandlife.org/18cNEL/children.htmA detailed account of the clothing worn bychildren in New England in the eighteenthcentury, though with no illustrations.

http://dept.kent.edu/museum/costume/bonc/3timesearch/tseighteenth/images.htmlCollection of front, back and side view photosof eighteenth century costumes in Kent StateUniversity Museum.

http://alpha.furman.edu/~kgossman/history/rococo/Photographs of costumes and examples frompaintings showing details of eighteenthcentury styles.

http://mall.craftech.com/hollinbooks/product_info.php/cPath/6/products_id/25Costumes of China, 1799, from the hand-colored antique book collection of Harris Hollin.

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IndexPage numbers in bold refer toillustrations.

à la française 7, 7, 61à l'anglaise 10, 10, 61à la polonaise 10–11, 33, 40, 61aprons 14, 17, 23, 27, 32, 33, 34, 36, 47armor 5, 42, 43

banyans 8, 9, 41, 61beards 19, 36belts 20, 29, 34, 41, 57bodices 6, 7, 10, 16, 17, 40, 41, 61body paint 58, 59breechcloths 28, 61breeches 8, 9, 12, 13, 17, 32, 37, 38,

39, 40, 42, 59, 61breeching 17, 61

capes 15, 25, 27, 28, 44, 47, 55caps 9, 16, 21, 34, 36, 37, 39, 41, 55

mobcaps 33, 61celebration wear 46–7children 16–17, 31, 51, 60cloaks 18, 20, 28, 30, 41, 43, 49coats 8, 9, 19, 20, 22, 23, 23, 25, 30,

32, 34, 38, 42, 46angarkhas 22anoraks 30, 31caftans 19, 20, 61dragon coats 24frock coats 12, 17, 39, 61frocks 8, 16, 60greatcoats 10, 43justaucorps 8, 35, 42, 61kontushes 18, 18, 60overcoats 18, 19pelisses 15, 56, 61tailcoats 12, 35, 62

collars 8, 18, 25, 34, 50, 51combs 11, 49costume decoration 27, 28, 30, 34, 46cravats 8, 61cuffs 6, 7, 8, 9, 24, 25, 50, 51

dandies 13, 54, 61dhotis 22, 23dresses 6, 7, 10, 14, 18, 20, 28, 33, 37,

40, 46, 56redingotes 10, 10, 12, 14, 35, 62shift dresses 16, 17, 51, 60, 62

dyes and dyeing 11, 26, 28, 30, 37, 47,48, 60

Empire line 14, 15, 61

fans 57, 57feathers 27, 28, 29, 30, 47, 48, 54, 55,

57, 59

fichu 10, 14footbinding 52footwear 52–3

boots 13, 18, 19, 20, 21, 24, 30, 31,53

clogs 53moccasins 28, 38, 53pattens 53, 53sandals 28, 53shoes 18, 19, 20, 34, 39, 52, 52slippers 19, 20, 21, 52, 53snowshoes 39socks 31, 52stockings 8, 9, 19, 27, 32, 34, 36,

37, 39, 50, 53

garters 9, 61gloves 15, 47, 56gowns 6, 7, 16, 19, 40, 45, 46, 47, 51

hairstyles 13, 36, 37, 54hats 9, 10, 20, 24, 28, 32–3, 37, 39, 46,

49, 55beavers 13, 55, 61fezes 20, 61tricorns 9, 13, 49, 55, 62

headdresses 19, 21, 27, 28, 30tantours 21, 21turbans 20, 22, 62

jackets 15, 17, 20, 21, 23, 32, 34, 39cholis 23jubbes 21spencers 15, 62

jewelry 14, 24, 28, 29, 47

kerchiefs 33, 34, 39, 61kimonos 26, 42, 61

leggings 27, 28, 30loincloths 21, 27, 41, 61

Macaroni 13, 13, 53, 61makeup 59masks 29, 29, 45, 47, 48–9, 48, 49merveilleuses 14, 51, 61military costume 42–3, 60mittens 31, 56-, 61muffs 56–7, 56

overdresses 6, 18sack dresses 6, 6, 62

overskirts 11, 56

paniers 7, 10, 17, 46, 56, 59, 60, 61petticoats 7, 41, 51piercing 59pioneer costume 38–9, 38, 39plain dressing 36–7, 36, 37, 61

ponchos 27, 27printing 11, 26, 60

batik 26purses 24, 56

religious costume 44–5ribbons 7, 9, 14, 21, 34, 49, 54, 55, 57riding costume 10, 12, 13, 24, 34–5,

35, 38, 48robes 16, 20, 21, 24, 25, 27, 44, 45, 46,

47, 60alb 44chao fu 25dragon robes 24, 24

rural costume 40–1

saris 22–3, 49sarongs 26sashes 14, 16, 17, 19, 22, 26

obi 26, 42turlups 19

scarification 59scarves 20, 21, 46seafaring costume 32, 34, 34, 39shawls 11, 15shifts 14, 17, 20, 33, 45, 50–1, 50, 51shirts 8, 9, 16, 19, 20, 26, 27, 30, 32,

33, 34, 36, 38, 39, 41skeleton suits 16, 17skirts 6, 8, 9, 10, 12, 14, 15, 16, 20, 22,

23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 33, 39, 40, 41,42, 51

smocks 40, 40stays 16, 51, 51, 59, 62stocks 8, 36, 44, 62stomacher 7, 62sumptuary laws 25, 60swaddling 16, 62

tattoos 58, 59trousers 12, 13, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 22,

26, 27, 28, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 37, 39,40, 41, 42, 45

pantaloons 16, 61payjamahs 22, 23, 23

tunics 18, 20, 22, 27, 28, 44, 47chasuble 44

undergarments 50–1underskirts 6, 10, 50, 51, 56, 62undress 8, 9, 60uniforms 34, 39, 42, 60

veils 11, 19, 21, 45, 48, 49, 55mantillas 11, 49, 61

waistcoats 8, 8, 9, 13, 17, 20, 22, 32,33, 34, 42, 46

farjis 22wigs 9, 13, 17, 54–5, 54, 55, 59, 60

Documents

The Eighteenth Century (History of Costume and Fashion volume 5)