A reticule was an indispensable item in a lady’s wardrobe
and was carried everywhere.
Shoes were also known as slippers and were quite dainty and often unsuited to the demands of daily life or the exigencies of walking and dancing. Either flat or low-heeled, they had a slim leather sole and were fastened with ribbons or laces tied around the ankle or instep. For everyday use shoes tended to be made of kid leather or jean although, despite their impracticality for outdoor wear, velvet, silk and satin were also popular and even recommended in the ladies’ magazines, especially for evening wear. Half-boots, worn for walking or riding, were low-heeled, short in length (they reached to the bottom of the calf), and were either buttoned at the side or laced at the side, front or back. They were made of either kid leather, jean, or nankeen, and occasionally of silk. Frederica wore half-boots of orange jean when visiting Lady Buxted and, on her long journey to London, Arabella found that her half-boots of crimson jean did not keep out the cold.
Accessories were an essential part of a well-dressed lady’s wardrobe and generally included a variety of bags, gloves, fans and muffs. A reticule was the Regency woman’s handbag and also known as a ‘ridicule’. It usually had a draw-string opening and came in a range of shapes, styles and fabrics. The style of dress during the period precluded pockets, making the reticule an indispensable accessory for any lady wishing to carry her money, handkerchief, scent or smelling-salts. Women often fashioned their own reticules and decorated them with embroidery or beads. In The Unknown Ajax, Anthea Darracott, following the advice in The Mirror of Fashion, attempted to make a reticule in the shape of an Etruscan vase which her mother assured her would look very elegant once it was painted. An alternative to the reticule for carrying money, the stocking purse was a long narrow tube with a single opening at the centre enabling the user to drop coins into each end. Usually knitted, crocheted or netted, they were closed by means of two metal rings encircling the central opening which could be pushed in either direction to secure the contents. Lady Bridlington kindly bought one for Arabella while shopping in London but ladies often made stocking purses to their own design and ornamented the ends.
No well-dressed woman went out of doors without her gloves which, although useful for keeping the hands warm, were considered an elegant and essential accessory for both day and evening wear. During the Regency they were mostly worn short during the day and elbow length in the evenings. Short kid leather or York tan gloves were mostly worn for riding, driving or other outdoor activities; coloured silk gloves were reserved for more genteel pastimes; long white kid gloves were exclusively for evening wear and knitted woollen gloves or mittens, though utilitarian and less attractive, were useful in the winter months. In Lady of Quality, Lucilla Carleton was thrilled when Ancilla granted her permission to buy her first pair of evening gloves to wear to a rout party.
A stocking purse was particularly convenient for carrying money,
and Patience Chartley in The Nonesuch held tightly to hers
while on a shopping trip to Leeds.
Muffs, large hollow cylinders usually made of fur, swansdown, fabric or sealskin, were used by both men and women, although favoured by the latter, to keep their hands warm. They varied greatly in size, with the heavier winter muffs as much as two feet in length, and were often made of sable or ermine while summer muffs were lighter and made of feathers or swansdown. An elegant accessory, muffs were often designed to match a woman’s tippet or the edging on her pelisse and could be used to conceal or carry small objects such as billets-doux or money. Sophy carried a large swansdown muff when she visited the moneylender, Mr Goldhanger, in The Grand Sophy and found it extremely useful for carrying her money, several important papers and her pistol.
Introduced to fashionable English society from China, the early parasols were made of silk and often shaped like a pagoda. Primarily used to shade a lady’s complexion from the sun, they were also considered an elegant accessory and were often chosen to match a particular gown or pelisse. Bamboo, cane and the new telescopic steel sticks were used for the frame, and hinged parasols, which could be used like a fan, were popular for a time. Unlike their male counterparts who carried their furled umbrellas held firmly in the middle, ladies carried their furled parasols by the handle.
And finally, every lady of fashion carried a fan in her reticule or slipped over her wrist at a ball or evening party. In previous decades the fan had been an instrument of dalliance and ladies were well-versed in the language of the furled or open fan, twirling, tapping, opening or closing it to convey messages of love and rejection. By the time of the Regency, however, the fan was used less for flirtation and more as an elegant accessory which could also provide some relief from the often oppressive heat of a crowded ballroom. Folding fans with multiple elaborately decorated sticks, known as brisé fans, were among the most popular and were often articles of great beauty. Those created by the celebrated eighteenth-century artist Angela Kauffmann, or which used the French vernis technique developed by the four Martin brothers, were highly prized. Vernis Martin fans were so-called because of their varnished (vernis in French) decoration; they were hand-painted, often with oriental scenes. In A Civil Contract Jonathan Chawleigh had already bestowed a Vernis Martin fan on his daughter Jenny when her husband Adam gave her an elegant painted fan with mother-of-pearl sticks. Fans could be made with sticks of delicately carved ivory, tortoiseshell, mother-of-pearl, bone, metal or lacquered wood, with leaves of silk, crape, lace or chicken skin. These delicate works of art had become smaller by the early nineteenth century and during the Regency were usually between six and ten inches long with a span of approximately 120 degrees. French fans and those made by oriental craftsmen were among the most popular fans for ladies during the period.
A fan was an elegant accessory which every lady carried with her to a ball or party.
HAIRSTYLES
The penchant for the Grecian style which influenced fashion in the early nineteenth century also extended to men’s and women’s hairstyles. For much of the Regency, men wore their hair short with just enough length to have it curled or waved. Partings were rare and many men wore their hair as it fell naturally while followers of fashion frequently affected one of the well-known styles of the day. Sir Richard Wyndham in The Corinthian favoured the Windswept which was one of the most difficult hairstyles to realise: the aim being to look as natural as possible without any indication of the time required to achieve it. The dishevelled style known as the Brutus was first made popular by Beau Brummell and was fashionable until the later years of the Regency although it took both time and patience to create the desired tousled look.
Some men still adopted a version of an earlier Grecian style called the Titus in imitation of the Roman emperor; it had short side-whiskers and was carefully cut and styled to sit up at the front and to follow the contours of the face at the temples. Other popular pre-Regency styles were the Coup au Vent, which was short at the back and worn long over the eyes at the front, and the Chérubin, which was all over short curls. Although a few members of the older generation still wore wigs, the 1795 tax on hair powder had seen them worn less and less and by the time of the Regency they were mostly worn only at Court. By 1813 many men had begun to cultivate side-whiskers and by 1818 both short and long side-whiskers had become fashionable.
During the Regency the fashionable ‘natural’ look of men’s hairstyles often took a great deal of time and patience to achieve.
In A Civil Contract Lydia Deveril persuaded her sister-in-law Jenny to adopt an elegant new hairstyle and exchange her ringlets for smooth braids.
Women, too, styled their hair along Grecian lines with soft curls around the face and the rest of the hair pulled back into a chignon or braided. The antique Roman style also became popular after 1810 with the hair lifted to the back of the head and styled into two soft knots or ringlets which hung lightly to the neck. A plain or jewelled bandeau was often worn around the hair in imitat
ion of the ancient modes. By the middle of the period long hair had become the vogue and it was fashionable to wear one’s hair in bunches of ringlets on either side of the head or, less commonly, in a braided coronet on the crown of the head as Jenny Chawleigh was persuaded to do in A Civil Contract. The ‘natural’ look which was so popular often took much time and patience to achieve and for those who did not have natural curls, it was necessary to produce them with metal curling tongs heated in the fire or by using curl papers. Styles such as à la Méduse (like Medusa) consisted of long curls or ringlets carefully dressed to create a ‘natural’ look. Upper-class and wealthier middle-class ladies often had a personal maid or dresser to attend to their hair or they could call upon the services of a professional hairdresser who would attend them in their home and charge between 2s.6d. and 5s. for cutting and styling. For formal occasions such as a ball it was fashionable to wear a tiara or even a wreath of flowers in one’s hair but for presentations at Court ostrich feathers were de rigueur.
SEALS, FOBS, SNUFF-BOXES AND QUIZZING GLASSES
Seals were small, decorative stamps used to impress one’s insignia on the wax seal of a letter. They were often finely crafted and could be made of ivory, silver, gold or other metal. Fashionable men often hung them from their fob-watch ribbon. Most gentlemen carried a fob or pocket watch in a specially designed pocket in the waistband of their breeches or pantaloons. Attached to the watch was a fob ribbon which hung outside the waistband and was weighted down with an ornamental fob. This not only advertised the fact that the gentleman could afford so expensive an item as a pocket watch but also made it easier to draw the watch from the pocket. As well as a fob, fashionable men often attached their watch key and a seal to the fob ribbon, while aspiring dandies and fops often hung several fobs and seals from their watch. Fobs were handcrafted, highly decorative pieces, usually made of gold or silver.
Most gentlemen carried at least one seal on their fob ribbon while fashionable fops were known to carry several.
Snuff taking did not become widespread in England until the early 1700s and in the first half of the century it was taken from bottles and jars as well as boxes. Ladies took snuff from a small bag hung from their dress, while some men purportedly carried it loose in their pocket. From mid-century, however, snuff was mainly taken from boxes and, by the time of the Regency (when snuff taking was in the last decade of its enormous popularity), snuff-boxes had become objects of fashion and status and, in upper-class circles, formed part of a complex social ritual with its own precise rules and etiquette. It was Kit Fancot’s lack of dexterity with his brother’s pretty Bernier snuff-box in False Colours that caught Sir Bonamy Ripple’s attention and earned Kit a piece of salient advice about how to handle it. Snuff-boxes varied greatly in size and shape as well as design: they could be almost any shape, including octagonal, heart-shaped, oblong, circular, oval, shell, sarcophagus and scroll, but they were also made in the form of people, animals, birds, fruit, flowers, books, shoes, sedan chairs and boats, and their inner and outer surfaces were often decorated with imaginative and beautiful designs. They could be made from almost any material but during the great period of manufacture, from about 1730 to the Regency, many of the most popular boxes were made of gold (almost always in alloy form as pure gold was too soft), silver, porcelain or hard-stones such as quartz, agate, onyx and jasper. But boxes made from ivory, bone, tortoiseshell, papier mâché, lacquer, wood, pewter, copper, brass, steel, leather and Vernis Martin were also an option. They could be plain or decorative, with any amount of jewellery or carving, and many boxes had etched, painted or engraved surfaces. They sometimes had cameos mounted into the lids, or the sides were painted or enamelled with pastoral scenes or family portraits. Many snuff-boxes were ingeniously designed with hidden openings, double lids or false bottoms for hiding love notes or portraits of a lover or mistress. Some collectors had a snuff-box to match every outfit, or one for every day of the year as Lord Petersham had in Regency Buck, with heavier snuff-boxes for winter and lighter ones for summer. Men and women often had boxes specifically designed for their gender and made distinguishable by shape, design or decoration. During the Regency there were many avid collectors and connoisseurs of snuff-boxes—both male and female—among the upper class.
Snuff-boxes were often miniature works of art and connoisseurs such as the Earl of St Erth in The Quiet Gentleman were extremely knowledgeable about design and origin.
Eyeglasses that could be held on the face with side arms were not invented until 1727 and prior to that date lenses used for reading or vision were hand-held or made to pinch the nose (hence pince-nez) which was uncomfortable. ‘Glasses’ often consisted of one lens set into a frame or heavy metal casing. During the eighteenth century these elegant magnifying lenses became known as quizzing glasses—possibly because the aristocracy used them as a weapon against pretension—whereby the person looked at was ‘quizzed’ or made to feel inferior. In The Corinthian, Sir Richard Wyndham used his quizzing glass to such good effect that it was considered one of society’s deadliest weapons against any form of pretension. Quizzing glasses were used by all classes, however, with those used by the less affluent being made of brass with crudely ground lenses compared with the often finely wrought, elegant gold and silver glasses of the upper class. Gentlemen generally wore them around their necks on a piece of ribbon attached to the handle.
A finely crafted quizzing glass was often used by members of the upper class as a weapon against pretension.
JEWELLERY
Although perennially popular, during the Regency most jewellery was worn in the evening. The simpler styles of dress worn earlier in the period lent themselves to embellishment, and necklaces, bracelets, brooches, aigrettes and jewelled combs or hair bandeaus were favourite adornments for the soft silks and satins of a lady’s ball gown. Some elaborate heirlooms such as the Cardross necklace which caused Nell such distress and worry in April Lady were considered quite antiquated and unfashionable. As the period progressed and dresses gradually evolved into more elaborate costumes, jewellery was often reset to match the new mode. Precious and semi-precious stones were both highly sought-after and diamonds, rubies, emeralds and pearls were popular along with garnets, topazes, turquoises and aquamarines. Ornaments for the hair were also favoured during the Regency and jewelled combs, pearl bandeaus, tiaras, aigrettes and circlets of silver filigree were much worn. Earrings were often worn during the day and at night and ladies sometimes had their ears pierced with a needle and silken thread so that they could wear a pair of diamond drops or fine pearl earrings. Jewellery for men was confined mainly to a handsome pocket watch worn with fob and seal attached, a plain or jewelled tiepin for his cravat and possibly a signet, such as the one worn by the Duke of Sale in The Foundling, or other kind of ring. Both men and women wore rings as a token of affection, loyalty or marriage.
AGEING GRACEFULLY
For many among the older generation, the rituals and traditions of the previous century in relation to dress were not easily put aside and there was considerable disdain—particularly among older men—for those of the younger generation whom they considered to have adopted a negligent, slovenly approach to their attire. It was not uncommon for some older men, such as Lord Lionel in The Foundling, to cling to the fashions of their youth, preferring knee-breeches for both day and evening wear and refusing to entertain even the thought of trousers or pantaloons. Wigs were also still to be seen, although powder had largely disappeared thanks to Mr Pitt’s 1795 tax. Manners were everything and most older men would have considered it an appalling breach of etiquette not to have changed their attire before sitting down to dinner with friends or family. Regency fashions were not always kind to older women, particularly those with a fuller figure. As a result some ladies, such as the wealthy Mrs Floore in Bath Tangle, clung to the more flattering, supporting attire of the previous century and continued to wear the wide skirts and panniers of the pre-Revolutionary period. Wigs also continued
to be worn by those older women who felt that the soft curls and tousled ringlets of the classical style could only make them look ridiculous.
GENERAL FASHION GLOSSARY
Aigrette: A tall plume of feathers—especially egret or ostrich feathers—worn as a headdress or attached to a hat; it could also be a piece of jewellery in the shape of a plume of feathers. Often worn at Court.
Angoulême bonnet: A high-crowned straw bonnet with a broad front brim, usually tied at the side of the neck.
Bandbox: A wide cylindrical box, deep enough to hold a hat; lightweight with a lid and handle.
Belcher handkerchief: A blue handkerchief with large white spots, each with a dark blue centre. Usually worn tied around the neck, it was named for the famous boxer, Jem Belcher, who used to wear one.
Blacks: Mourning clothes for both men and women.
Blond lace: Made by twisting two threads of silk into ‘hexagonal meshes’.
Bombazine: Black fabric used for mourning clothes. It was made of wool and silk and had a matt surface considered more suitable for mourning than silk, satin or velvet.
Broadcloth: Fine merino cloth, twilled and woven on a wide loom and in such a way as to make one side of the fabric shiny.