#15 - Women's Fashion in the Eighteenth Century (1700's.)

First of all, I seriously love reading the stuff yall come up with on the tests.  I'm thinking "fill in the blank" questions exist exclusively for the entertainment of educators.  Yall are hilarious!  Now, let's get to it.

Wecome to a new century!  There are pirates and nations and colonies and the beginning of The Enlightenment!  Which is totally different from the Rennaisance because, um... hmmm.... hold on..... How about we just see what Wikipedia says....

The term "Enlightenment" did not come into use in English until the mid-18th century,^[6] with particular reference to French philosophy, as the equivalent of the French term 'Lumières' (used first by Dubos 1733 and already well established by 1751). From Immanuel Kant's 1784 essay "Beantwortung der Frage: Was ist Aufklärung?" ("Answering the Question: What is Enlightenment?") the German term became 'Aufklärung'.

If there is something you know, communicate it. If there is something you don't know, search for it.

— An engraving from the 1772 edition of theEncyclopédie; Truth, in the top center, is surrounded by light and unveiled by the figures to the right, Philosophy and Reason.

"For Kant, Enlightenment was mankind's final coming of age, the emancipation of the human consciousness from an immature state of ignorance."^[7] According to historian Roy Porter, the thesis of the liberation of the human mind from the dogmatic state of ignorance that he argues was prevalent at the time is the epitome of what the age of enlightenment was trying to capture. According to Bertrand Russell, however, the enlightenment was a phase in a progressive development, which began in antiquity, and that reason and challenges to the established order were constant ideals throughout that time.^[8]

Russell argues that the enlightenment was ultimately born out of the Protestant reaction against the Catholic counter-reformation, when the philosophical views of the past two centuries crystallized into a coherent world view. He argues that many of the philosophical views, such as affinity for democracy against monarchy, originated among Protestants in the early 16th century to justify their desire to break away from the pope and the Catholic Church. Though many of these philosophical ideals were picked up by Catholics, Russell argues, by the 18th century the Enlightenment was the principal manifestation of the schism that began with Martin Luther.^[8]

Chartier (1991) argues that the Enlightenment was only invented after the fact for a political goal. He claims the leaders of the French Revolution created an Enlightenment canon of basic text, by selecting certain authors and identifying them with The Enlightenment in order to legitimize their republican political agenda.^[9]

Historian Jonathan Israel rejects the attempts of postmodern and Marxian historians to understand the revolutionary ideas of the period purely as by-products of social and economic transformations.^[10] He instead focuses on the history of ideas in the period from 1650 to the end of the 18th century, and claims that it was the ideas themselves that caused the change that eventually led to the revolutions of the latter half of the 18th century and the early 19th century.^[11] Israel argues that until the 1650s Western civilization "was based on a largely shared core of faith, tradition and authority".^[12]

Up until this date most intellectual debates revolved around "confessional" - that is Catholic, Lutheran, Reformed (Calvinist), or Anglican issues, and the main aim of these debates was to establish which bloc of faith ought to have the "monopoly of truth and a God-given title to authority".^[13] After this date everything thus previously rooted in tradition was questioned and often replaced by new concepts in the light of philosophical reason. After the second half of the 17th century and during the 18th century a "general process of rationalization and secularization set in which rapidly overthrew theology's age-old hegemony in the world of study", and thus confessional disputes were reduced to a secondary status in favor of the "escalating contest between faith and incredulity".^[13]

So this seems to me to be a natural progression.  In the Rennaisance they questioned the state religion and start messing about with science.  Later, after a whole lot of wars over religion (which really means power over others and the authority to be the "authority") folks began questioning governments (poor Charles I and his divine right of kings ideas) and developed the scientific process.  The Enlightenment was a phase when they started looking at everything and began to use their new-found reasoning skills to do things like believe in the Rights of Man and, oh, I don't know, write a little thing like the Declaration of Independance.

Therefore this era and patterns of thought are really important to us as U.S. citizens.  So, you know, maybe read up on that or something.   Now for clothes!

The mantua was the style for women at the opening of this century, right?   The whole point was to showcase the fabric by draping it on the human figure and just stitching pleats into it in order to preserve the fabric.  This meant that the sleeves weren't cut and stiched in but of a piece with the fabric front or back.

This is remarkably like this item of clothing

and for exactly the same reasons.  Both mantuas and kimono are robes which go out of their way to NOT cut the silk, mostly because silk takes a long time to make, is expensive, looks pretty when in all one piece, and if you preserve it you can use it again on a different dress for your daughter or whatever.

And before we move on, please let me tell you about the Kyoto Costume Institute and their digital archives.  It's amazing and you can spend all day looking at stuff.  Go HERE.

The pink mantua above is also open like a robe, with a stomacher pinning it together.  But yall knew that, right?   Well, the style evolved into the Robe Volante, or saque gown.

This dress, which you can read about at the Metropolitan Musem of Art website HERE, is a saque gown made from silk which had once been a mantua.   As you can see, the uninhibited display of rich silk brocade is the primary motivation of this dress.   The saque gown, or Robe Volante, was also pretty comfortable.  They were banned at Louis XIV's court but he also banned the fontange and everyone ignored that, too.   Anyway, here's a photo of one more dress before we move on.

You will not be surprised to learn that the saque dress was a style of dress which continued well into the 1800's because it was A) comfy, B) good for pregnant ladies, and C) what you could clean the house in.   Pretty much the equavalent of sweatpants.  And, after they went out of style in the 1730's, absolutely no one wore them outside of the house.  So there are no photos or paintings of anyone not pregnant wearing one after the 1730's but there are journal entries of pioneer ladies who complained of reaching Salt Lake with only one sacque gown to their name.

The Robe Volante evolved into the Robe a la Francaise.  This is also known as the saque back dress or the Contouche.   The botice became more fitted and all the extra fabric was pleated in the back.  These pleats are called Watteau pleats sometimes because of the French artist who painted them into portraits.

As you can see the bodice is much tighter.  If you look at the edge of the sleeves, you will see a lot of ruffly stuff.  Those are called an engageantes and they are just pinned or stitched on.  And, yes, a lot of their clothing was just pinned together.  Now,  here's a Watteau painting:

The ladies in pink and white are wearing sacque dresses and the lady in blue is wearing a sacque-back dress.  The lady in blue is the cutting edge of fashion.   Take a moment here to look at the white-dress lady's shoe, too.  That is a mule and it was the basic shape of every shoe for this entire century.  Yes, that's right, high heels and pointed toes began during the "Age of Reason" and they dominated women's foot wear.   Let's take a quick look:

All of these images are from a website called The History of Shoes.

Anyway, heels were banned in post-Revolutionary France because they were seen as elitist and aristocratic but by 1860 everyone was back on the high-heel bandwagon.   There was a brief moment in the 1960's when, along with the cultural revolution that was happening, an architect named Bernard Rudofski pointed out that pointy toed shoes were not actually food-shaped.  He demonstrated it with some drawings:

and with some sculpture:

and then finally just invented some shoes which he thought were actually better for the human foot.

Rudofski sandals are still made in Italy today and are outrageously expensive.  You could also pick up a $5 pair of look-alikes at Kmart.  The cost or the location isn't important. What IS important is that you will now know the history of these sandals every time you see them, and you will know that they represent a desire for a lifestyle which is designed around humans rather than compressing humans into an artifical lifestyle.

Okay, so where was I...
Ah!   the Robe a l'Anglaise!   In France everything got sloppy and saque-like when Louis XIV died.  In England they were having none of that so the mantua just evolved into the English "Nightgown". (It is called a Nightgown in contrast to a day dress which is whatever it was you wore around the house.)  It is basically a mantua with more tailoring and without the long train.   The dress is still open in the front to show the petticoat and it's pinned together with a stomacher.

This is the back of the dress and the skirt is stitched onto the bodice using a method called en fourreau. This means the fabric of the bodice is stitched and pleated into the back of the skirt, like it would have been in a mantua.  Since people like to make these dresses there are photographs to demonstrate this:

Here is the bodice as fabric draped onto a dress form.  See how long the tail of it is?

And here's the way the back of the dress actually looks.

This dress is available for sale on ebay and I think it's awfully pretty
if you are in the market for a yellow and purple striped Robe a l'Anglaise

So, just as the saque dress evolved into the sacque-back dress, the Robe a l'Anglaise evolved into the Robe Polonaise:

It's basically just the skirt pulled up and pinned to the petticoat to look cute/get it out of the way.   The Polonaise style also allowed for the skirt to be pretty short (showing the ankle!!) so it was practical if you were working or growing or just wanted to flash some ankle.  Basically, if your Nightgown shrank or you got taller or you wanted to run somewhere, you just pulled up the skirts, maybe rolled your petticoat at the waist, and you had a Polonaise.

Robe a l'Anglaise

Polonaise!!

So, that's awesome.   But, last and most obnoxious, was the Robe de Court.

This style was exclusively for court appearances.   You can't sit in these but it didn't matter because you weren't allowed to sit in the presence of the king anyway.   Women started using hoops again, rather than just petticoats, and this evolved into the "false hip" or pannier.   The word came from the French word for wicker basket which a farmer put on either side of a donkey.

Subtle.

Anyway, basically the rest of Europe caught on to this bizarre style the Spanish had been doing for a hundred years but no one hung out in these terrors unless they had to.

Also, a style which the working classes enjoyed and the rich ladies picked up was the Caraco jacket:

This is basically a saque-back jacket worn over a skirt/petticoat.  It's super handy and comfortable and cute and was what basically everyone wore in France right before the Revolution.   There is also a German version called the Brunswick which is totally adoreable because it had a hood:

Now, let's talk about underwear.  Women wore stays, which were corsets which didn't pinch the waist but flattened the stomach, pushed out the breasts, and supported the back so women could do more work.

 Working women wore stays.  They didn't tight lace them because tiny waists wern't a required thing if you wern't at court.  (And even if you were at court, your skirts were so enormous that your waist automatically looks pretty tiny.)  They did, however, want their shoulder blades to almost touch so the stays were designed to pull their shoulders back.

Posture, as you can see, is very important.   In this time period, also, women didn't wear drawers, or bloomers, or underpants.   There was so much other stuff going on with shifts and stays and hoops and panniers and pinned-together dresses, that getting drawers untucked out from under all that mess to go to to the bathroom was impractical.  So, yes, everyone went commando.

Well, what were women wearing in Colonial America besides no underpants?   Check out this on-line paper doll and find out!

Colonial Williamsburg Paper Doll Game

Also caps began to be a thing.  Here's a quote:

Cap

The cap was worn by women and girls to dress their heads. It was a practical piece that allowed the head to be dressed without styling the hair. At the same time it protected the hair from everyday dust and dirt so that the hair need not be washed as frequently. A hat was tied on top of the cap when going out. The cap could be made of linen, cotton, or even all lace. Lace and ruffles could be added to the cap. The style of fashionable cap changed frequently.

We are used to seeing caps on women but it's nice to know why they existed.  It wasn't just fussy or a way to stay warm, it was because it was a simple way to keep their hair out of their face and clean.

Okay kids, this posting is probably long enough. (Or just way too long.) We will stop here and I will discuss the (not very exciting) changes in men's wear next time.   For now, here's your test!


https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1y456zTVUnC4NIvNhb7Gt2o52-FDa-B9WFUqMZl9L-u0/viewform

You Had A Question?

Emma asked:

this is king Louis XV as a babe, Why is he wearing a dress?

This is a cool question so I will answer it in a blog post because there's a lot to say. 

The breeching of boys didn't become a thing until after 1540 because before then, everyone wore a skirt.

Remember this?

 Everyone wore a chiton or tunic up until this point and so kids did too, since children were dressed in clothing which was just a miniature version of adult wear.  But, right around the time codpieces were invented, men began to wear pants.   All children wore long long dresses until they could walk.

 

This is Charles II in his baby clothes before he was "shortcoated".  (The term for what male children wore was "coats".) When a child became a toddler and started trying to walk, the skirts of the gown/coat got shorter and sometimes the dress had leading strings on it.  And, no, there is no difference between a gown and a coat except for the name.   It's pretty much the same difference between the words skirt and kilt.

Anyway, boys wore coats until they reached an age when they were old enough to be considered young men, sometime between three and eight years old.  This was an important rite of passage and it meant that the father now had a lot more involvement in the boys life.  Generally it was after the boy was potty trained and able to negotiate the stupidly complicated fastenings on his pants, but it was also when they felt the boy had attained the "age of reason" which is about seven or eight years old.

But, before then, it's really hard to tell which is a boy and which is a girl in old paintings.  Generally, boys wore darker colors and didn't wear pearl necklaces (if they have a necklace, it's coral because those were considered the best substance for teething.  Amber was popular in Eastern Europe [it also is much more common in Russia] which is why babies these days all have amber necklaces. [For reals, there are two at the school where I work.]  However, since the whole point of these coral/amber necklaces is for the children to chew on them, the ones the hippie moms put on kids which are snug to the neck [to reduce the chance of strangulation] I guess aid teething by magic.)

This is a painting of the children of Charles I.  The next king of England, Charles II is in the center in the orange pants.  His brother James, who became James II when Charles died without an heir, is second on the left in the orange dress.  He is wearing a dark color and isn't wearing pearls so he's totally a boy.  

Anyway, dressing boys in skirts continued to be a thing up until the end of the World War I, though boys  began to wear pants earlier and earlier until it was a thing done when he was potty trained, at around age three or four.  When he got his knickerbockers for the first time, it was such an important occasion that he also got to take a picture with his dad.

Looks like a lot of fun.

So why did all children wear dresses? Well, I think the quickest answer is the word "diaper."  If you have ever interacted with children you might have noticed this

is where diapers have the most problem, design wise.  Add in the complete lack of waterproof fabrics and you can understand why a skirt is probably the best design if you don't want Junior making a mess on everything.

So, that's why boys rocked dresses/coats and why, to us, Louis XV looks like a pretty little girl.

"Also, it's because his mom wouldn't let him play with swords and dogs like my mom"