Ackermanns

Ackermann’s Fashion Plates January 1817

October 17, 2018 By BlissBennet 1 Comment

January 1817’s fashion plates focus on French fashions: a full dress made for the Duchess de Berri, and a plate of hats of Parisian design. The Duchess’s court dress features an open robe (of British net!) trimmed with blond lace and adorned with intermingled lilies and roses. The underlying white satin slip features five rows of trimming: two satin twisted rolls; a wide wreath of lilies of plain blond; a deep flounce of blond lace; and a waves of lily stalks, surmounted by what appear to be fleur de lis. Ackermann’s fashion writer of late has taken to referring readers “to the print” rather than to actually describing the bodices of the gowns featured; a sign of growing social delicacy, perhaps? Or just a lack of sewing knowledge on the part of the correspondent? Rubies intermixed with pearl are the jewels of choice here, including necklace, earrings, bracelets, and armlets. The lady’s headdress is said to be “a single lily, placed in a bunch of fern,” although the fern here looks to be of the feathered variety.

Ackermann's January 1817, plate 4: Full Dress

Vol. III, no. xiii, plate 4: Full Dress

Each of the hats below are “furnished… from one of the first houses in Paris.” The similarities amongst them suggest that stylish misses wore their bonnets with large crowns, as well as deep fronts, and that floral decorations were the most in favor—auriculas, white roses, China asters, Provence roses, and unspecified “fancy flowers.” Straw in natural shades, or in black, dominate.

Ackermann's January 1817, plate 4: Parisian Head-Dresses

Vo. III, no. xiii, plate 4: Parisian Head-Dresses

General observations on English dress and fashion include:

• Walking dresses made of the warmest materials for winter promenades

• Muffs made of ermine, sable, and “Isabella bear” fur

• A former trend of wearing sable and ermine caps “are rather too showy for the present chaste style of promenade dress”; bonnets of beaver, velvet, or black straw are preferable

• The “most elegant novelty for the carriage costume” is a pelisse “composed, we believe, of the wool of seal skin, and lined with white sarsnet”

• “Fancy silks of every description are in high estimation for dinner dress, as is also plain and striped levantine, plain and fancy poplin, and plain velvet;… fancy striped poplin and spotted silk of a new pattern are higher than any thing else in estimation”

• The “Charlotte spencerette, composed of white satin, with a mixture of royal purpose, has just been introduced, and is greatly admired”

• Winter flowers are much worn in the hair for full dress; bandeaus and sprigs of diamond or pearl are in high estimation, while hair ornaments of coloured stone are rare

• Coloured stones are more in fashion in full dress jewelry than they have been in the past; crosses and lockets are “highly fashionable”

January’s fashionable colours include lead-colour; Provence rose-colour; royal purple; very dark green; various shades of brown; Clarence blue; and ruby

January’s issue includes the quarterly report of fashions from Paris, where the sartorial trends are as mixed as are the country’s politics. As our correspondent reports, “Some of our élégantes affect and excess of plainness and simplicity in their dress, which agrees as ill with the studied graces of their manners as rouge would with a Quaker’s bonnet. Others rush into the opposite extreme, and in their age for show decorate themselves with all the colours of the rainbow, and bird defiance at once to elegance and good taste.” Our correspondent christens the two groups Formalists and Dashers. Of course, a British woman’s taste “will point out the happy medium” amongst the descriptions of the melange of gowns that follow.

Seemingly, the form of the gowns worn by each group are similar. In day dress, the only real difference is in the cornette: formalists wear “a simple morning cap of a moderate size, without any ornament, not even a ribbon,” while dashers don “a high cornette, trimmed extravagantly with bows and drawings of glaring red orange or lilac; the colour of the ribbon is always different from that of the dress.” In dinner dress, it is the trimmings on the gowns themselves that differentiated the two groups. Formalists wear gowns with no trimming at all, or at most two narrow bands of velvet, “always of a sober colour, or a single flounce composed of the same materials as the dress,” while dashers “wear three or four flounces, put on pretty close to each other, so that there is not above an inch of the edge of each flounce visible; each of these flounces is bound with ribbon, always of the most glaring colour.” Needless to say, our correspondent is not at all in favor of this trend (“at once tawdry and heavy”).

A novelty that I do not recall having been mentioned before in Ackermann’s pages is the witzchoura, which a quick search online reveals to be a type of sleeved cloak with a large collar and occasionally a hood. Deriving from the Polish word wilczura, meaning “wolf fur coat,” the style is said to have been introduced by Napoleon’s Polish mistress, Marie Walewska. I doubt any British belles would have had such a garment made from an actual wolf…

Fashionable colours in Paris include amber, blue, pink, yellow, and scarlet, quite different from those reining in London.

“Ornaments for painting on Fancy Work,” rather than an embroidery pattern, is featured in January’s issue. The classically-inclined pattern here is similar to the one which appeared in December 1816’s pages:

Ackermann’s Fashion Plates December 1816

October 10, 2018 By BlissBennet Leave a Comment

The death of the Queen’s brother sent the court into mourning in late 1816, but the fashion plates from the December issue do not shy away from bright colors. Court mourning may have “retarded the appearance of those novelties” in fashion, but as mourning is “expected to be short,” Ackermann’s columnist feels no compunction at describing “what is expected to be most in request among belles of taste at its close.”

Both of this month’s dresses are, in fact, both French, “but in the best style of Parisian costume,” reassures our columnist. Was there a “worst” style of Parisian costume?

Ackermann's Fashion Plates December 1816, Plate 36: Promanade Dress

Plate 34, Vol. II, no. xii

Plate 34 features a Promenade Dress, one almost entirely hidden under a crimson “Angouleme pelisse.” Candice Hern suggests the style is named in honor of the Duchesse d’Angloulême, the eldest daughter of Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI, who lived in exile in England from 1807 to 1814. Its bright color certainly appears appropriate for the December holiday! I’m particularly drawn to the model’s “ridicule” or reticule, which is described as being made of “black silk… exquisitely worked in imitation of the ends of an India shawl, and trimmed with black silk fringe.” Its boxlike shape, with its triangular top, makes it look like a little house, don’t you think?

Ackermann's fashion plates December 1816: Plate 35, Carriage Dress

Plate 35, Vol. II, no. xii

Were ladies on the road during December, traveling to visit relatives for the holidays? Plate 35 also features an outfit for out of doors time, a carriage dress made of “pale faun-colour cloth, made a walking length, and trimmed round the bottom with four rows of rich blue silk trimming.” The front (although we can’t see it in the plate) is reported to be “cut very low,” is also trimmed with the same rich blue silk, although “but very narrow.” The “tasteful half sleeve, over a plain long sleeve, made tight at the wrist,” is also “bound with blue trimming.” The description mentions the usefulness of an India shawl when actually riding in a carriage, although no such shawl appears in the plate. And while no mention of it is made in the description, a small but quite colorful red reticule features prominently. Makes me want to visit the Museum of Bags and Purses in Amsterdam…

Ackermann's Fashion plates December 1816, description part 1

General Observations on Fashion and Dress for December include the following:

• For “juvenile and hardy élégantes,” high dresses made of poplin or levantine will be in style

• Cloth shawls will be matched with such dresses; those featuring narrow gold bindings and gold tassels are “likely to be most prevalent,” although ermine and other costly furs are also likely to be popular

• Bonnets of black straw, beaver, and velvet are “all talked of,” while “feathers, to correspond, will be universal”

Ackermann's December 1816 Fashion plates, description part 2

• Fancy velvets and white merino cloths will dominate carriage costumes

• For evening dresses, fancy gauze, and white net spotted with white silk, “are likely to be in the highest estimation for juvenile belles,” while “white satin, white and figured velvets” will be “generally adopted by mature élégantes”

I don’t remember Ackermanns’ columnists making distinctions between the dress of young girls and older women before; is this where the idea that young girls only wore white comes from, I wonder?

Instead of a needlework pattern, this month’s issue features “Ornaments for Painting on Wood and Fancy Work.” Puffing its own wares, Ackermann’s notes that “painting and ornamenting Tunbridge and fancy ware” has become “an elegant and useful amusement” among the fair sex, and that anyone interested in pursuing such a recreation may find the materials necessary at the Repository of Arts.

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

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

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…

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…

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

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

Ackermann’s Fashion Plates July 1816

August 1, 2018 By BlissBennet Leave a Comment

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?

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

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

Ovals and scallops feature in July’s needlework patterns:

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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?

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

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Ackermann’s Fashion Plates May 1816

June 13, 2018 By BlissBennet 1 Comment

Mrs. Gill of Cork-Street, Burlington Gardens, continues to rule the dress design pages of Ackermann’s Repository for 1816. May’s entries, as were April’s, both favor white for their gowns, Plate 28’s evening dress made of satin and lace, Plate 29’s carriage dress of cambric and muslin. The evening gown’s starkness is lightened by tiny dots of color in the form of “Coloured stones” (“amethysts and emeralds are most in favour,” our correspondent notes below in the “General Observations on Fashion and Dress”). Here they are are used not only in a necklace, but as ornaments on the sleeves and bodice. I don’t recall seeing such stone ornaments in earlier Ackermann’s prints.

Ackermann's May 1816, plate 28: Evening Dress

Plate 28, Vol. I (2nd ed.) no. v

Our correspondent reports that the carriage dress depicted in plate 29 is “the most elegant carriage dress of the months and the only novelty worth mentioning hat that appeared in the carriage costume.” The description of the dress doesn’t really say what’s so novel about it, though. Is it the robe which overlays the dress, made in the chemisette style The blue ribbon bows which ornament the sleeve between elbow and wrist? Or the “elegant ruffle” which edges the end of each sleeve?

Ackermann's May 1816, plate 29: Carriage Dress

Plate 29, Vol. I (2nd ed.), no. v

Ackermann's Fashion plate description part 1, May 1816

Highlights from “General Observations on Fashion and Dress” include the news that pelisses continue to be “more fashionable than any thing else” in promenade costumes; that green sarsnet is most in favour for casual dress; Irish satin even more in favour for dinner dress; and the robe à la Bergère (shepherdess) is most in favour for full dress. We also hear about the introduction of a new type of stay, the corset des Grâces, which, our correspondent claims, “possesses the double advantage of improving the shape, and conducing towards the preservation of the health; no compressions, no pushing the form out of its natural proportions; it allows the most perfect ease and freedom to every motion, while, at the same time, it gives that support to the frame, which delicate women find absolutely necessary.” I couldn’t find any images online of this particular corset style; anyone have any books on corset history that show what it might have looked like?

Ackermann's Fashion Plates description May 1816 part 2

In London, May’s fashionable colors are reported to be green, lilac, azure, primrose, straw, and wild rose.

May’s edition also includes a lengthy account of French fashions, including the news that that not much has changed in recent months with the exception of changes in fabric and hats. The Parisian belle has set aside cloth and velvet for the spring, exchanging them for the lighter fabrics of sarsnet, satin, India muslin, and white spotted silk. High-crowned chapeaux and cornettes, which had begun to decline in fashion, have once again become extremely fashionable. Some are colored, but most are white, made either from satin, or chip and blond put very full over satin. Court ladies, loyal royalists, are reported to wear rings featuring a miniature of the French king, “which is always placed on the fore-finger of the left hand, as being the one nearest the heart.”

White is the color of choice in Paris, although there is some request for hyacinth, jonquil, rose-color, lilac, and green.

Ackermann's May 1816 French Female Fashions column

Leaves dominate May’s muslin patterns:

Ackermann's May 1816 Muslin pattern

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

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