Bliss Bennet. The passion of historical romance.

Bliss Bennet writes smart, edgy novels for readers who love history as much as they love romance.

  • HOME
  • BOOKS
  • BIO
  • BLOG
  • EXTRAS
  • CONTACT
  • facebook
  • Twitter
  • pinterest
  • goodreads

Ackermann’s Fashion Plates October 1816

September 26, 2018 By BlissBennet Leave a Comment

 

Roses are the theme of October 1816’s fashion plates, serving as trimming for both the Half Dress gown of plate 22, and the Ball Dress of plate 23. The Half Dress is described as being made of “lilac sarsnet,” but the ink of the print seems to have changed over time, to a dark almost black shade here. The print doesn’t show us the front of the gown, but we can see the unusual back, with its bands of pink ribbon in a triangle from each shoulder to the waist center. Pink ribbon also serves as a double border between which appears a row of large “French roses.” The model’s cornette, or cap, comes in for particular praise; even though the style is “French” it is “so simply elegant and becoming, that we have not for some time seen any half-dress cap to equal it.”

Ackermann's October 1816, plate 23: Half-Dress

Vol. II, no. x (2nd series), Plate 23

Ackermann's October 1816 Fashion plate description part 1

 

Both of the gowns featured in this month’s plates were provided by one of the magazine’s subscribers; perhaps said subscriber had a particular fondness for French roses, for they appear as a headdress atop the model of plate 23’s ball gown, too [Does anyone know what makes a rose “French”?] This ball gown also features a triple-trimmed hem: closest to the hem is a “rich rollio of intermingled gauze and satin”; in the middle is a “wreath of fancy flowers” [perhaps including some French roses?]; white satin swags topped by small bows serve as the third band of adornment. Trimming “uncommonly tasteful and striking,” opines our columnist.

Ackermann's October 1816, plate 23: Ball Dress

Vol. II, no. x (2nd series), Plate 22

 

Highlights from the general observations on Fashion and Dress include:

• Current trends in trimming for promenade dresses (“about a half a quarter in breadth; it is disposed in bias flutings,, and finished at both ends with pipes”) is deemed “in very bad taste” by our columnist: “it is formal, and not at all novel, and has no other recommendation than being fashionable.”

• Walking dresses current feature trimming of two or three flounces, lightly embroidered in colours. “”We do not mean an intermixture, but various shades of the same colour: evening primrose, dark blue, and green are most in favour”

• Gloucester bonnets and spencers still remain popular

Ackermann's October 1816 fashion plate text

 

• Collars are “entirely exploded, and ruffs continue to be an indispensable part of walking or carriage dress”

• Morning dresses, with their triple fall of work at the wrist, “have, at a distance, an uncommonly ludicrous effect; the trimming being pointed, and worked in holes, has the appearance, specially when there are so many falls of it, of being actually in rags.” Ah, what the élégantes will wear, all in the name of fashion!

• Clear muslin bodices, made half-high, are all the crack for dinner dress; back bodices have become wider, after decreasing a bit over past months

• Being on the short side myself, my sympathies were engaged by this tidbit: “Dresses are still trimmed very high, which is a great disadvantage to under-sized belles”

Fashionable colors of the month are:

Pomona green

Dark and azure blue

Evening primrose

Peach-colour

lavender

 

October’s Needle-work patterns:

Ackermann's October 1816 Needle-work patterns

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Filed Under: Regency History Tagged With: Ackermann, Ackermanns, Ackermmann's, clothing, dress, fashion, needlework

Ackermann’s September 1816 Fashion Plates

September 12, 2018 By BlissBennet Leave a Comment

Stripes! I can’t remember a previous gown featured in Ackermann’s Repository that featured stripes to the degree that plate 16’s half dress does. Not only is the gown itself made of striped sarsnet, the slippers that accompany it are, too! But in 1816, stripes alone are not enough to adorn even a simple day dress; the candy striped concoction here features two flounces of lace with headings, and bows of Pomona green above the highest flounce. Similar bows run down the top of each sleeve, too. I think I would have preferred a striped dress to be weighted down with less adornment—would you?

Ackermann's Repository September 1816, plate 16: Half Dress

2nd series Vol II, no. ix, plate 16

 

 

Plate 17 features a plain white evening dress—at least, plain in terms of its fabric, British net over a sarsnet slip. But the dress features as many embellishments as its companion day dress. A double flounce of lace, a wreath of roses, and a rollio of white satin above the roses bring the skirt trimming almost to knee-height; a companion bouquet of moss roses “shades” the bosom, while a quilling of blond lace frames the bodice. Even more detailed are the  dress’s short and full sleeves, which are “divided into compartments by rollios of satin.” (FYI, a “rollio” is a type of rolled trimming, used for decoration; according to Cunnington’s Dictionary of English Costume, fabric is “rolled into a very narrow tubular shape”). Pearls are the jewelry of choice for this gown. Was it made for a very young lady?

 

Ackermann's September 1816 Fashion Plate 17: Evening Dress

2nd series, Vol. II, no. ix, plate 17: Evening Dress

 

Ackermann's Fashion Plates September 1816 descriptions

 

General observations on British Fashion and Dress include the following:

• The Gloucester bonnet and spencer are in vogue for carriage dress

• The cold weather has led ladies to wrap themselves in silk scarves and shawls, laying aside muslin pelisses as not warming enough

• Lace is not so generally worn in morning dress as in the past (although the columnist’s adumbrations against it suggest this may be more of a recommendation than an actual observation)

• Silks striped of the same color are popular in dinner dress, as are gowns of shot sarsnet

• The Gloucester robe is an “elegant novelty” in full dress

 

The prevalence of “Gloucester”-named apparel stems, I’m guessing, from the July 1816 marriage of the Duke of Gloucester and Edinburgh (1776-1834), nephew of George III, to King George’s fourth daughter, Princess Mary.

 

Fashionable colors for September echo those of August, with the addition of Pomona green and lavender.

 

This month’s magazine also includes fashion news from France, where the bad weather experienced in England had turned fine only a few weeks earlier. Worked muslin is in fashion for promenade dresses, unlike in colder England, and white is the most commonly seen in evening dress. The author mourns poor French taste in not matching bonnet linings with trim or ribbons:

 

“for example, you see a bonnet lined with blue, trimmed with green, and perhaps ornamented with a bunch of different coloured flowers; at present, blue, rose-colour, and green are favourite linings; but, I think, plaid silk is still more than any thing in request, and some of our most distinguished fashionables have sported bonnets entirely composed of it” (180).

 

Luckily for French fashion, reports the correspondent, the Duchess of Berri (mother of the current heir to the French throne) sets the French style with her notable taste in dress.

 

Ackermann's September 1816 French Female Fashions description

 

Curves, rather than stripes, take center stage in September’s needlework patterns:

 

Ackermann's September 1816 Pattern for Needle-Work

Filed Under: Regency History Tagged With: Ackermann, Ackermanns, Ackermmann's, clothing, costume, dress, fabric, fashion, needlework, wedding

Ackermann’s August 1816 Fashion Plates

August 8, 2018 By BlissBennet Leave a Comment

 

August 1816’s first fashion plate depicts its “evening gown” not from the front, but from the back, a rare sight in a fashion plate of the period. You can see how tiny the bodice was in the back, only a few scant inches of satin plaits (pleats) covering the mid-back; the bodice itself is cut quite low, down the shoulders. I wonder if the lady could have worn any sort of corset with a dress cut so low? The trimming around the bodice’s edge is made of white net fashioned into roses, with a “little tuft of pearl in the heart of each.” I hope those roses weren’t too scratchy…

Ackermann's August 1816, plate 10: Evening Dress

 

We see very little of the “Walking Dress” shown in plate 11, covered as it is with a pelisse of blue and white shot sarsnet. The text describes it as “made half-high”; it looks more to me as if it has three layers, echoing the cloaks worn by the more fashionable male whips, which featured multiple capes. The look is repeated in the triple layers of “rich lace” that finish the bodice. I particularly admire the jaunty white satin hat; its turned-up brim gives it an “air of peculiar smartness.” A good model for Georgette Heyer’s The Grand Sophy as she takes the reins and drives her carriage down St. James’ Street…

Ackermann's August 1816, plate 11: Walking Dress

 

General trends in August’s fashions:

• Feathers are far less common on hats than are flowers worn á la Françoise (as in plate 11), or simple ribbon adornments

• Carriage costumes still feature scarves, but “the Princess Mary’s bonnet and spencer are higher in estimation.” The princess, eldest daughter of George III, was finally allowed to wed, marrying her cousin, the Duke of Gloucester, in July, only two months after the marriage of Princess Charlotte, daughter of the prince regent. This column includes a description of Mary’s wedding gown.

• Backs of immense breadth, with sleeves falling off the shoulder, are out; backs are now of “moderate” breadth, with sleeves just touching the shoulder

• Long sleeves remain fashionable in full dress, a trend that Ackermann’s columnist does not favor: “it is true they are always composed of crape, lace, or gauze, but however light the material, they are certainly not appropriate to full dress.”

• Fashionable colors for August include green, celestial blue, straw-color, pale pink, and violet

 

Ackermann's Fashion Plates August 1816 descriptions

 

Long lines of embroidery—to adorn the hem of a gown?—are featured in August’s needlework patterns:

Ackermann's August 1816 needlework patterns

 

 

Filed Under: Regency History Tagged With: Ackermann, Ackermanns, Ackermmann's, clothing, costume, dress, fashion, needlework

Ackermann’s Fashion Plates July 1816

August 1, 2018 By BlissBennet Leave a Comment

 

Ackermann's July 1816 Plate 4: Opera Dress

July 1816’s fashion plates both feature white gowns, one for the opera, and one for morning dress. The opera dress is made of lace worn over a satin slip, while the morning dress is made from muslin (“the only thing now adopted by belles of taste in the morning costume”). Both feature full sleeves, coming tight only at the wrist. And both feature dramatic trimmings about the hem: the opera dress with lace festoons trimmed with “byas” (bias) satin and held by pearl ornaments; the morning dress with two bands of “rich work” (needlework) with a scalloped edge. The lady in the morning dress holds a large book of sheet music; is she just off to practice her pianoforte?

 

Ackermann's July 1816 plate 5: Morning Dress

 

In general fashion notes:

• Matrons are sporting pelisses, while the younger set prefers the spencer

• Straw and Leghorn hats and bonnets are still in fashion

• China crepe scarfs, richly embroidered in colors at the end, are worn for carriage costumes, or scarves of French silk net

• Coloured bodices are not currently in fashion, although white satin bodices are quite popular

• The corset de Grâces is still in fashion; the Thuringuen habit is reputed to be on the rise amongst female equestrians

• Peach-blossom is much in favor as a color in fashions

 

Ackermann's July 1816 Fashion Plate descriptions

 

A long letter from “Eudocia” to “Sophia” reports on the fashions in Paris:

Ackermann's July 1816 French Female Fashions

 

Ovals and scallops feature in July’s needlework patterns:

Ackermann's July 1816 Needlework patterns

SaveSave

Filed Under: Regency History Tagged With: Ackermann, Ackermanns, Ackermmann's, clothing, costume, dress, fabric, fashion, needlework

Ackermann’s Fashion Plates June 1816

July 18, 2018 By BlissBennet Leave a Comment

 

Vol. I, no. vi, plate 33: Bridal Dress

In commemoration of the wedding of HRH Princess Charlotte of Wales to HSH Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfield in May of 1816, Ackermann’s June 1816 edition features a white “bridal dress” as its first fashion plate, the first time, I believe, such a garment ever appeared in its pages. Historians suggest that the white bridal dress, or wedding gown, did not become de rigeur in Western culture until after Queen Victoria wed in white in 1840; Charlotte’s gown was actually silver. But dressmaker Mrs. Gill of Burlington Gardens anticipated the Victorian trend with this design, which features white striped gauze over a white satin slip. And wearing white was not a symbol of sexual purity, but of class status: only the richest people could afford to pay to launder such easily soiled clothing.

Princess Charlotte of Wales' Wedding Dress 1816

Princess Charlotte’s wedding dress (1816) – This elaborate cloth-of-silver empire line dress embroidered with flowers and trimmed with Brussels lace was worn by Princess Charlotte when married Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg in 1816. This remarkable, glittering dress is 195-years-old, the oldest royal wedding dress that Historic Royal Palaces cares for. © The Royal Collection/Historic Royal Palace.

Regency wedding gowns were rarely expected to be worn only once and never again, as they typically are today. If a Regency-era lady had a gown especially created to be married in, as Mrs. Gill’s customer did, it was more likely to become her new best dress, rather than something to be stored away in her wardrobe. Can you imagine what it might be like to step into this elaborate dress just to attend church of a Sunday?

The issue’s second fashion plate is also white: an evening dress made of white lace worn over a white satin slip. This gown’s adornments are even more pronounced than those on the bridal gown. The “wrath of beautiful fancy flowers” “surmounting” the flounce and 3 bias tucks are almost as large as the lady’s head! Of what do you think they were made?

 

 

Vol. I, no. vi, plate 34: Evening Dress

 

The writer of the London Fashion column reports that she/he is “forbidden either to describe it [the body and sleeves], or to mention the materials of which it is composed”—no doubt, to encourage viewers to visit Mrs. Gill’s shop and enquire themselves. A nice marketing trick, no?

 

 

The long description of London fashions include the month’s most fashionable colors: “green of all the lighter shades, evening primrose, sapphire blue, pale blush colour, and straw colour.” Our columnist also notes that “frocks are entirely exploded.” I’m not sure whether this comment refers to the observation made just before it, that bodices have moved higher, or are covered by a small lace tippet; or to the one made just after it: “Coloured bodices are very prevalent: they are in general worn with white long sleeves.” What is more clear is that full dress jewelry composed of colored stones mixed with pearls or diamonds is also “wholly exploded.” Instead, London’s ladies are wearing only diamonds or pearls, or sets of necklaces, earrings, and bracelets all made from a single gemstone (sapphires, amethysts, topazes being the most common), when they step out in full dress. For half-dress, gold, or white cornelian intermixed with gold, is deemed suitably elegant.

What would happen, do you think, if a lady arrived at court wearing unfashionable jewels?

"London Fashions" Ackermann's Fashion Plates June 1816, part 2

 

Fronds, curlicues, and half-circles feature in June’s muslin patterns:

 

Ackermann's Muslin Patterns June 1816

 

 

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave

Filed Under: Regency History Tagged With: Ackermann, Ackermanns, Ackermmann's, clothing, dress, fashion, lace, needlework, wedding

Ackermann’s Fashion Plates April 1816

May 15, 2018 By BlissBennet Leave a Comment

 

As with March’s fashion plates, April’s dress designs are also by one Mrs. Gill of Cork-street, Burlington Gardens. I’m wondering, now, if these dressmakers had to pay for the right to place their dress designs in front of the eyes of Ackermann’s readers? Or did they just have to have an in with the journal’s fashion writer?

As for that writer, I have to say that after reading four months of their commentary, I’m finding their descriptive powers somewhat lacking. Almost each outfit featured is described with the word “novel”; second in popularity seems to be the word “elegant.” If everything is termed both novel and elegant, how is a reader to know what is truly novel? Or has fashion begun to change so quickly that what was “novel” one month is now displaced by a new “novelty” the next?

 

Plate 22, Vol. I (2nd ed.), no. iv

The shape of Plate 22’s Morning Dress doesn’t strike me as particular novel: a round gown of cambric. The lines of small tucks, and the worked flounce with a heading seem quite in keeping with the increase of trimmings in post-war fashions. I quite like the bodice, gathered at the center and flowing toward each shoulder. Caps have always left me a bit cold, but our reporter describes this one as “uncommonly becoming,” ornamented with lilac ribbon.

 

Ackermann's April 1816 plate 23, Opera Dress

From the waist down, this month’s Opera Dress, plate 23, looks quite similar in style to its companion Morning Dress, although it is made from white satin with a lace overlay rather than from cambric. Again, the bodice is not really described in much detail; the columnist seems most interested in the outfit’s “Berlin cap,” with its rich gold band and its crown of short ostrich feathers. “The Berlin cap is, in our opinion, the most generally becoming headdress which has been introduced for some seasons,” writes our columnist.

 

Ackermann's April 1816 London Fashions

This month’s general observations note that “the fashions have changed less since our last number than they do in general at this season of the year.” But this is likely to change soon, given the upcoming nuptials of Princess Charlotte (May 2, 1816). Despite the report of the increasing fashionableness of mantles last month, pelisses still seem to be ruling the fashion scene. Our columnist’s prediction that the Cobourg hat would increase in popularity seems to have been more on the mark. “Satinet,” a fabric composed of silk and worsted, with a rich satin stripe, has recently been introduced, and is reported to be “in much request with belles of rank and taste.” Another recent introduction, Irish satin, is also reported to be popular, especially among those “ladies of rank who wish to encourage the productions of our own looms, in preference to French goods.” (“Satinet” is indeed listed as a fabric in Fairchild’s Dictionary of Textiles, although “irish satin” is not).

 

Ackermann's London Fashions 2

This month’s fashionable colors are the same as last’s, with the addition of light drab and lilac.

 

This month’s muslin pattern:

Ackermann's April 1816 muslin pattern

Filed Under: Regency History Tagged With: Ackermann, Ackermanns, Ackermmann's, clothing, dress, fashion, needlework, Regency costume, Regency dress, wedding

Ackermann’s Fashion Plates March 1816

May 8, 2018 By BlissBennet Leave a Comment

 

March 1816’s fashion plates feature some quite unusual headdresses and trimmings. In fact, the sleeves and the trim around the upper robe of Plate 16’s Evening Dress are “composed of novel materials, which we are not allowed to describe”!! Regency novels often feature scenes of young ladies poring over fashion plates to choose styles for their own new gowns, but such reticence in description suggests that the plates were as much about directing viewers to the gown’s creators (in the case of March’s plates, one Mrs. Gill, of Cork-street, Burlington Gardens) as they were to inspiring viewers to copy them.

 

Ackermann's Fashion Plate 16, March 1816: Evening Dress

Plate 16, vol. I (2nd series), no. iii

 

The model for this month’s Evening Gown stands beside a classically-designed pedestal, which seems quite suitable, as the gown in some ways resembles an over-decorated column. The white satin underskirt is trimmed with a deep flounce of blond lace; the French gauze overdress features elaborately twisted white trim, interspersed with blue knots or florets. The headdress also mimics the look of a classical column: a Circassian turban, with long ends hanging from each side over the ears and down below the bustline. It’s topped with an aigrette (a new word for me!), a head ornament made either of the feathers of an egret, or a spray of gems resembling the same. I don’t spy any feathers atop this model; the copy says this aigrette is composed of rubies intermixed with pearls.

 

Ackermann's Fashion Plate 17, March 1816: Carriage Dress

Plate 17, Vol. I (2nd ed), no. iii

Mrs. Gill’s Carriage Dress, plate 17, also puts me in mind of classicism, although this time classicism at one remove: the classicism of the university. Doesn’t that Polish cap, with its silk tassel and square shape, put you in mind of a graduate student proceeding down the aisle to claim a diploma? “Uncommonly novel and pretty,” the copy describes it.

 

The dress that accompanies it is almost as unusual, with its pink striped silk overdress and bodice which looks more like a contemporary balconette bra than anything I’ve seen before in a Regency-era dress. A high body of jaconet muslin covers the rest of the lady’s front. The copy doesn’t say what the brown fringe on the dress’s hem and running down the sleeves is made from; it looks almost like a fuzzy caterpillar, running down her arm, doesn’t it? I’m guessing this is an outfit designed for an open, rather than a closed, carriage—with so much trim, you’d definitely be aiming to be seen!

 

Ackermann's March 1816 General Observations on Fashions 1

This month’s “General Observations on Fashion and Dress” runs to fashion news runs nearly four pages long, and is followed by almost as many pages reporting on “French Female Fashions.” Somewhat ironic, given the copy of the “General Observations” chides that “we are too much indebted to our Gallic neighbors for the modes and materials of fashionable attire.” In England, “pelisses continue very much in favour,” although mantles are, “though slowly, gaining ground.” Wellington mantles, “just introduced,” the “barouche wrap,” and the “Richmond spencer” are popular, as is the Cobourg hat. In fabrics, French striped silk (for morning dress) and French spotted silks (for evening dress) are increasingly in vogue. In France, chintz is “entirely exploded”; cambric, muslin, and sarsnet have taken its place for elegant morning dress. Both writers talk of fashions shifting far more quickly than I had imagined—changes taking place over a month, or a few weeks ago. By the time you have a printed copy of Ackermann’s in hand, the styles it details might well be out of fashion!

 

 

Ackermann's March 1816 General Observations on Fashion 2

Ackermann's March 1816 General Observations on Fashion 3

 

The fashionable colors in France this month are purple, damask, rose, green of various shades, and jonquil. Lots more details in each column; I leave you to peruse at your leisure!

 

Ackermann's March 1816 French Female Fashions

 

And this month’s needlework patterns:

 

Ackermann's March 1816 needlework patterns

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Ackermann, Ackermanns, Ackermmann's, clothing, dress, fashion, needlework, Regency costume, Regency dress

Ackermann’s Fashion Plates February 1816

April 26, 2018 By BlissBennet Leave a Comment

 

The description of the first of February 1816’s fashion plates, Plate 10, an “Evening Dress,” is rather frustrating. The writer reports that “the slight view which we had of the dress will not permit us to describe” its trimming; it advises readers to refer to the plate to “form a very correct idea of it.” Readers are also advised to refer to the plate for a clearer depiction of the body of the dress, which is reported to be “extremely novel and elegant,” but which is not described in any detail. Was there some scheduling mix-up between dressmaker, copy writer, and artist?

This made me wonder how the writer, dress designer, and artist who created the fashion plate interacted. I had once assumed that the dress designer also supplied the descriptive copy, but here, Mrs. Griffith, of Riderstreet, St. James’s, the “inventor” of the dress designs, is obviously a different person than the one who wrote the column. It sounds as if the writer of the copy viewed actual dresses (if only for a short time!), rather than the plates, to write the copy, and that the writer wrote the copy before having the chance to view the finished plates.  Does anyone know of any sources that talk about how such plates were created?

 

Ackermanns Fashion Plates February 1816, plate 10: Evening Dress

 

The Evening Dress seems to be adorned with puffs of silver or light blue, with a pleated bodice that barely rises over the top of the shoulders. Not a dress that one could wear a corset under, I’d wager. The slippers are of “white satin,” “trimmed en suite, and made, as all dress shoes are now, to come very high over the foot.” The headdress, with its small cylinder sticking up from the top almost like a chimney  is styled “toque á la Rubens.”

 

Ackermann's Fashion Plates February 1816, plate 11: Promenade Dress

 

The copy writer must have been allowed more time with Mrs. Griffiths’ Promenade Dress, for the description here is far more detailed. Although we aren’t told what, precisely, the “new-invented trimming” that adorns the hem of the dress is made from, readers are assured that it has “an uncommonly light and pretty effect.” The dark mulberry of the dress, with a velvet spencer one shade darker, makes for a dramatic contrast with the oversized “Roxburgh muff,” made of white satin and swansdown. The muff is so large, you might well keep a small pet inside! Although readers are cautioned (enticed?) by the note that said muff is “from the beauty and delicacy of its materials, calculated only for the first style of promenade or carriage dress.” Would Mrs. Griffiths allow one to purchase her muff alone, without knowing with what dress it might be paired?

 

Ackermann's Repository February 1816: "Ladies Fashions"

 

This month’s “fashionable colours” are “ruby, fawn, emerald, and bottle green; French rose, blue, pale brown, and light purple.”

 

Ackermann's Repository February 1816: Muslin Patterns

 

SaveSave

Filed Under: Regency History Tagged With: Ackermann, Ackermanns, Ackermmann's, clothing, dress, fabric, fashion, needlework

Ackermann’s Fashion Plates January 1816

April 18, 2018 By BlissBennet Leave a Comment

 

The start of 1816 also signaled the start of the second series of Ackermann’s Repository of Arts, Literature, Fashions, Manufactures, &c. In the note “To Our Readers and Correspondents” in Vol. I, no. 1 of this second series, the editors note “though some few individuals may perhaps experience disappointment at the omission of certain articles which they have been accustomed to find in our pages, we are confident, that the general voice will pronounce in favour of our endeavours to heighten their interest and to enlarge the sphere of their utility.” One thing that has been cut is the “Allegorical Wood-Cut, with Patterns of British Manufactures,” i.e., the fabric samples that had once appeared at the back of every edition of the Repository. They had been becoming more and more rare over the years, replaced by the less expensive black and white needlework patterns; 1815’s volume included only two fabric sample pages, one in January and one in May. Had the practice become too expensive? Or were drapers and dressmakers coming out with their own catalogues, and no longer needed to puff their wares in the Repository?

 

Ackermann's Fashion Plates, January 1816. Plate 4: Morning or Carriage Dress

January’s first fashion plate, a “Morning or Carriage Dress” (plate 4) of an unspecified “dark blue ladies’ cloth.” The back of the bodice is gathered tight at the waist, and spreads out across and off the shoulders, almost like a fan. Dark blue satin, cut on the “byas,” trims the hem of the dress. Most striking is the “headdress al la mode de Paris” made from white lace ornamented with two rolls of ribbon. It almost looks like the coxcomb of a rooster, doesn’t it? The description terms it “in the highest degree original”; I wonder if any of Ackermann’s readers thought “original” might just be shading over into “silly” here?

 

Ackermann's Fashion Plates, January 1816, plate 5: Evening Dress

Plate 5, an “Evening Dress,” is plain in its underlying lines, but “superbly ornamented with French Lama work in silver.” I couldn’t find any information on “French Lama work”; is it a kind of embroidery or crewel work, perhaps? The ornamentation on the skirt, which is not confined just to the hem but rises almost past the lady’s knees, looks almost three-dimensional, doesn’t it? The bodice is also quite intricate, with the “crape fronts of the bosom open at each side, so as to display the white satin one underneath.” The sleeves echo this intermingling of satin and crape, with the satin this time the recipient of silver ornamentation. Mrs. Bean, of Albermarle Street, is the designer of both of this month’s dresses.

 

Ackermann's Fashion plates, January 1816: descriptions

 

Though readers interested in fashion might have mourn the lack of fabric samples, the editors invite them to rejoice at an addition in the updated Repository: “The attention of our fair readers, especially those resident in the country, is requested to our notice respecting an extension of our observations on Female Fashions, which we trust will give them general satisfaction.” These extensions take the form of longer columns, rather than additional fashion plates, alas. But with the war with France finally over, English readers must have been eager for news from the heart of fashionable taste: Paris. As the commentary accompanying January’s fashion plates notes “Although the French fashions, in their present fantastic and unbecoming form, can never appear to our fair country-women worthy of imitation, yet as they may feel some curiosity respect the decoration fo the French belles, we have engaged a correspondent, on whom we can rely, to furnish us with a correct account of the Parisian fashions, which shall appear every other month.” Curiosity without imitation? I wonder…

As these accounts from France run several pages in length, I won’t reproduce them here (although I will mention the “fashionable colors for the month”: “dark brown, yellow shot with green, crimson, the darkest bottle green, celestial blue, pale lavender, and that incongruous mixture, green and orange shot”).

 

What were formerly called “needlework patterns” are in this second series termed “muslin patterns.” Here is January’s:

 

Ackermann's Repository, January 1816: Muslin Patterns

 

 

SaveSave

Filed Under: Regency History Tagged With: Ackermann, Ackermanns, Ackermmann's, clothing, dress, fabric, fashion, needlework

Ackermann’s Fashion Plates December 1815

March 28, 2018 By BlissBennet Leave a Comment

 

After the whites and pale pink of the dresses in the previous two months of Ackermann’s Fashion Plates, it feels like a breath of fresh air—holiday air—to gaze on the crimson red slip and silver-striped French gauze evening gown of December’s plate 33. Trimmed with white flowers and green leaves, the gown conveys a decidedly festive air. The three-quarter length frock is “drawn up in the Eastern style” on the bottom, the slit “confined by a cluster of flowers” that matches those adorning the hem. The white satin trim, edged with crimson ribbon, trims the hems of both gown and slip, as well as the bodice and sleeves. And to top it all off, the evening gown features a negligé, this one not an item of intimate apparel, but rather a necklace of irregularly set beads or pearls.

Ackermann's Fashion Plates December 1815: Evening Dress

Vol. XIV, no. lxxxiv, plate 33

I can’t remember seeing evening gloves trimmed with a quilling of tull before, as are the ones in this plate.

 

Ackermann's Fashion Plates December 1815: Promenade dress

Vol. XIV, no lxxxiv, plate 34

Plate 34’s Walking Dress also features a splash of color, this time the dark blue of a twilled sarsnet pelisse. Look at those large ribbon bows adorning the front opening of the pelisse! And I’m amazed by the border of leaves decorating the hem; it is difficult to tell from the picture, but the description suggests that they might be appliquéd onto the pelisse itself, rather than simply embroidered (“a border or leaves formed of the same sarsnet, edged with white satin”). The slashed sleeves at shoulders and wrists, as well as the elaborate collar (not described in the copy), must have added hours and hours of work for whichever seamstress was assigned the task of crafting this gown. Not to mention the way the hem is drawn up into small festoons, almost like a curtain…

 

Mrs. Bean, the creator of this ensemble, was, according to her trade card, dressmaker to both the Duchess of Kent and to Princess Charlotte. It must have been a mark of distinction to rate a “special appointment” with “the ever-varying and approved taste of Mrs. Bean.”

Trade card for Mrs. Bean, Milliner and Dressmaker.

Trade card for Mrs. Bean, Milliner and Dressmaker. British Museum

 

December 1815’s needlework patterns are also quite unusual: six circles, each with its own design. They remind me of the hex signs you see adorning the barns in Pennsylvania Dutch country. What do you imagine they were intended to adorn? Seat backs? Screen covers? Pillows?

Ackermann's Needlework patterns December 1815

 

Filed Under: Regency History Tagged With: Ackermann, Ackermanns, Ackermmann's, clothing, dress, fabric, fashion, needlework

Next Page »

RSS Bliss Bennet. The passion of historical romance.

  • Ackermann’s Fashion Plates January 1817
  • Ackermann’s Fashion Plates December 1816
  • Ackermann’s Fashion Plates November 1816
  • Ackermann’s Fashion Plates October 1816
  • Ackermann’s September 1816 Fashion Plates
  • Ackermann’s August 1816 Fashion Plates
  • Ackermann’s Fashion Plates July 1816
  • Ackermann’s Fashion Plates June 1816
  • Ackermann’s Fashion Plates May 1816
  • Ackermann’s Fashion Plates April 1816

Categories

  • A Lady without a Lord
  • A Man without a Mistress
  • Book Production
  • Guest Post lins
  • Rebel without a Rogue
  • Regency Curiosities
  • Regency History
  • Uncategorized
  • Writer's Life

Archives

  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
SITE NAVIGATION

Home
Books
Bio
Blog
Contact
Newsletter
Privacy Policy

TWITTERTweets by BlissBennet
SOCIAL
Bliss Bennet Facebook
Bliss Bennet Twitter
Bliss Bennet Pinterest
Bliss Bennet GoodReads