Gloria's Blog

Miss Jane Austen – fashion icon?

We writers of Regency novels are conscious of how important it is to get every detail and the minutia of daily life correct. I know when writing A Passionate Pursuit I perused many costume books to guide me. I wanted to be absolutely sure that all my ladies were dressed just as they should be (it’s a pity that some Hollywood film makers are not so exacting!). It was during my research I discovered what to me was a surprising and exciting revelation: Had Jane Austen lived today she would without a doubt be a fashion slave; a Prada handbag girl, fashion editor of a glossy magazine. For what our Jane didn’t know about the latest fashion definitely wasn’t worth knowing. So who better to guide us in our writing than someone who was without a doubt a sure authority on what the Regency miss, or mister would be wearing. But where did she gain her knowledge? Although news of fashion and style was being spread by the publication of newspapers, periodicals and fashion plates from the end of the eighteenth century, most women still depended on hearing news about clothes from the written or verbal descriptions of friends and relatives visiting or living in London, the large provincial towns, or fashionable resorts such as Bath or Clifton in Bristol. And this is where Jane Austen was such an invaluable source. It’s through Jane’s letters we learn about her knowledge and interest in fashion and in her writing she shared this knowledge and interest with the reader – In Pride and Prejudice the first part of Mrs Gardiner’s business on her arrival to stay with the Bennets ‘was to distribute her presents and describe the newest fashions’ and when Jane Bennet returns from a visit with friends she has the same task: her mother ‘Mrs Bennet was doubly engaged, on one hand collecting an account of the present fashion from Jane, who sat someway below her, and on the other, retailing them all to the younger Miss Lucases’. Jane herself frequently exchanged news about the fashions with her sister, especially when visiting London or Bath. She wrote to a friend from London in September 1848: ‘I am amused by the present style of female dress; Bonnets upon the full stretch are quite entertaining. It seems to me to be a more marked change than one has seen lately.’ In the last years of the 1790’s a particular fashion for trimming hats with flowers and fruit became widespread and Jane Austen finds herself involved, while staying in Bath, in shopping around for those decorations, though she describes the fashion with some irony. In June 1799 she told Cassandra: ‘Flowers are very much worn, and fruit are even more the thing. – a plum or greengage will cost three shillings – cherry or grapes five shilling a pound I believe. But this is at some of the dearest shops. My aunt has told me of a very cheap shop near Walcott Church to which I shall go in quest of something for you.’ In her next letter she says, ‘I cannot decide about the fruit. Besides, I cannot help thinking it’s more natural to have flowers growing out of the head than fruit.’
On close examination it is soon apparent that Jane has at some time had something to say about every piece of apparel worn by women (and men too). Through her we can learn that the spencer was a short jacket, cut like the bodice, usually with long sleeves and a high neck. In June 1808 Jane Austen was to write that ‘my kerseymere spencer is quite the comfort of our evening walks.’ Spencers could be made of silk as well as woollen cloth. Then there was the pelisse, an over-garment or coat, cut on the same lines as the dress, usually with long sleeves and fastened at the front. It was an important garment at this time and often mentioned in Jane Austen’s novels and letters, it is interesting to see how she uses it as a simile in Persuasion. Captain Wentworth is describing his ship, which was an old one before he came to command it: I knew pretty well what she was, before that day,’ he said, ‘ I had no more discoveries to make, than you would have as to the fashion and strength of any old pelisse, which you would have seen lent about amongst half your acquaintances, ever since you could remember, and which at last, on some wet day, is let to yourself.’ In Mansfield Park when Fanny Price visited Portsmouth she was not considered knowing by the young ladies therefore ‘she neither played on the pianoforte nor wore a fine pelisse.
During the eighteenth and early nineteenth century women’s gowns should be either open or closed at the front. The gown was usually worn over a petticoat (that is an underskirt) and in the 1790’s might even have been worn with a closed robe. Jane Austen’s references to petticoats concern underskirts (or underdresses) as main garments, rather than articles of underclothing. In Pride and Prejudice when Elizabeth Bennet walked three miles to visit her sister her appearance was criticised by her friends. ‘I hope you saw her petticoat, six inches deep in mud, I am absolutely certain, and the gown which had been let down to hide it, not doing it’s office.’ In December 1798 Jane mentions turning one of her old gowns into a petticoat.
Concern about sleeves appears in both her letters and novels. Although long sleeves were worn during the day, it was usual in the evening to wear short sleeves with a low-cut neckline. By 1814 long sleeves were beginning to be worn in the evening and Jane Austen seems to have been determined to wear them herself (she was now in her late thirties, and only three years before her death, not in the best of health) ‘I shall wear my gauze today’ she wrote in late March1814, ‘long sleeves and all; I shall see how they succeed, but as yet I have no reason to suppose long sleeves are allowable. She goes on to say, ‘ Mrs Tilson has long sleeves too, and she assured me that long sleeves are worn in the evening by many. I was glad to hear this.’ Mrs Bennet in Pride and Prejudice was evidently concerned with the same subject when her sister visited her from London she confided, ‘ I am very glad to hear what you tell us, of long sleeves.’
Several of Jane’s letters refer to the making a gowns with trains. Evening gowns were usually cut with a fullness at the back to form a small train and we can imagine in The Watsons (a novel that was not finished), how ‘Mrs Edwards’ satin gown swept along the clean floor of the ballroom.’ In Northanger Abbey Isabella Thorpe and Catherine Morland ‘pinned up each others trains for the dance.’
The loose, simpler style of women’s dress during the latter years of the eighteenth century brought with them brought more lightly boned stays or corsets and they began to shrink in size and as the bodice of the dress got shortened. By the beginning of the nineteenth century the ‘Grecian’ figure had become fashionable so that clothes were styled to reveal the natural, and well-rounded contours of the female figure. In September 1813 Jane Austen noted: ‘I learned from Mrs Tucker’s young lady, to my high amusement, that the stays are not now made to force the bosom up at all; that was a very unbecoming, unnatural fashion. I’m very to hear that they are not so much off the shoulder as they were.’ (Stays were worn with shoulder straps at this date). As a fashion garment they were an important item for any woman to buy and the following month she writes that her nieces went in to Canterbury to try on new stays. The new short-waisted style of women’s dresses, so deceptively simple in appearance, could, in fact, be very restricting and the tight constraint around the ribcage extremely uncomfortable.
Jane Austen seems to have a weakness for stockings and she told Cassandra that she preferred to have only two pairs of a fine quality to three of an inferior sort. The best were made of silk; in April 1811 she bought three pairs ‘for a little less than 2 shillings a pair,’ and in September her niece, Fanny, was ‘very much pleased with the stockings she bought of Remington silk at 12 shillings and cotton at 4 shillings and 3 pence – She thinks them a great bargain but I have not seen them yet.’ Apart from silk and cotton, stockings could also be made of wool but the worsted ones she mentions buying were given away to people in need and were doubtless warm and practical rather than elegant. Garters were worn around the knee to hold the stockings up. Jane Fairfax in Emma knitted a pair for her grandmother.
’
Footwear: shoes of the plain slipper type were worn indoors and for the evening. Jane Austen mentions them of a number of different colours: blue, green, pink, white and black. These colored shoes were not necessarily be made of leather; fabrics such as silk and satin were also used. Shoes were either bought at a shoemaker ready-made or made to measure. In Mansfield Park Mary Crawford told Fanny Price that her friend ‘will be at me for ever about your eyes and your teeth, and how you do your hair, and who makes your shoes.’
Half boots were fashionable for walking or riding. In Emma Emma Woodhouse tries tactfully to fall behind her two companions when out walking by fiddling with the lacing of her half-boots.
Reading Jane’s letters has given me a greater understanding of what she was really like, and these letters have been an invaluable source of information to me. However, it seems that there was one garment was deemed to be unmentionable by Jane – that oh so intimate garment; the knicker, or panty as it’s known. It was Catherine de Medici who introduced women to wearing this garment (called the calecon), and for very practical reasons – horse riding, thus avoiding any embarrassment if the wind blew raising their skirts. Oh My!!