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

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.

 

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

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 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 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

 

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

Ackermann’s Fashion Plates November 1815

March 21, 2018 By BlissBennet Leave a Comment

 

As in last month’s fashion plates, Ackermann’s November plates feature a morning gown and a walking dress (although this month labeled with the fancier title “Promenade Dress”), and a lady with a book in hand. I wonder if after the tumultuous summer and fall in the aftermath of Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo, ladies were spending more time at home or on quiet walks than they were socializing?

Plate 27, the morning dress, features a petticoat topped by an unusual cross-bodice jacket, rounded at the bottom front and collar. The high waisted look of the period is achieved by the addition of a ribbon or belt cinched or tied right below the bosom. Both the petticoat and the jacket are trimmed with a broad border of cross-hatched “French work,” which also appears at the wrist of each sleeve. I’d like to try to sew a version of that little jacket some day…

Ackermanns Fashion Plates November 1815: Morning Dress

Vol XIV, no lxxxiii, plate 27

 

The description of plate 28, the Promenade Dress, says it is made of “the moreno blue striped satin,” something the painter of this plate doesn’t seem to have heeded; the dress appears white, or perhaps a pale pink, and I don’t see anything in the way of stripes. At least the illustrator got the blue of the satin ribbon on the hat right!

Ackermanns Fashion Plates November 1815: Promenade Dress

Vol. XIV, no. lxxxiii, Plate 28

Have you ever heard the word “gypsy” as a verb? The copy here says  the bonnet is “composed of orange-coloured satin, gipsied with a handkerchief of the same.” Any guesses as to what that might mean?

 

Ackermanns Fashion Plates November 1815, copy

 

Although it is termed “Patterns for Needle-Work” in the issue’s Table of Contents, the actual pattern page appears to be titled “Muslin Patterns.” Unlike patterns in earlier issues, which typically featured long, narrow patterns for the edge of a gown, this page features three sets of tiny repeating motifs, along with two short leaf and vine patterns. To embroider on a handkerchief, perhaps, instead of a gown?

 

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

Ackermann’s Fashion Plates October 1815

March 14, 2018 By BlissBennet Leave a Comment

 

The first of October 1815’s fashion plates includes a negligé, but don’t get too excited; this negligé is far different than the garment we currently associate with the term. The French word négligé appears in an English source as early as 1715, but at that time was used as an adjective, to describe someone negligently or informally attired. By the mid-18th century in America, the term had also come to describe a lady’s loose-fitting gown or informal male garment. During the same period in England, the word was also used to describe a kind of men’s wig, and a necklace or girdle of irregularly set beads. Not until the mid 19th century did negligé take on its current meaning, a light dressing gown or nightgown, typically made of flimsy, semi-transparent fabric and trimmed with lace and ruffles.

Plate 22 features a white cambric muslin petticoat, topped by a white negligé, which to my eye looks more like a short, light jacket than a dressing gown. Although it is trimmed all round with “French work” to match that of the petticoat flounce, it appears to be made of the same cambric as the petticoat, not of any silky or semi-transparent fabric. More of a comfortable additional layer to keep the arms warm on chilly October mornings than something meant to entice the eyes of another.

Ackermanns October 1815 plate 22: Morning Dress

Vol. XIV, no. vxxxii, plate 22

 

Though Plate 23 is labeled ” Walking Dress,” its model sits, rather than walks, amongst picturesque rocks, a book open in one hand. She, too, is dressed in white cambric, though her second layer is more colorful than that of the lady in plate 22: an open pelisse of grey sarsnet, lined with salmon satin. Look at the slashed sleeves; though they appear grey in the plate, the description says they, too, are made from the salmon satin. An unusual color combination, don’t you think? I’m very drawn to the model’s French bonnet, with not one but three grey ribbons set about its crown, to match the pelisse.

Ackermann's Fashion Plate October 1815: Walking Dress

Vol. XIV, no. lxxxii, Plate 23

 

Ackermann's Fashion Plate copy October 1815

 

This month’s needlework patterns feature swirls of leaves in three different settings.

Ackermanns October 1815 Needlework pattern

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

Ackermann’s Fashion Plates July 1815

February 21, 2018 By BlissBennet Leave a Comment

 

The news of Waterloo has still not caught up with Ackermann’s publishing schedule, nor with its fashion plates, in this July 1815 issue. In fact, the space devoted to the text for the plates is a bit longer than typical. It includes not only descriptions of the two dresses featured, but also more general comments on current ladies’ fashions. We learn that bodices of cross or handkerchief fronts are currently the rage in morning and walking dress, especially when trimmed with quilled tull or ribbon. Fashionable colors this summer are “primrose, celestial blue, and evening primrose.” The higher hems seen in earlier 1815 plates also reflect current trends: “the length of the petticoat continues not to exceed meeting the top of the boot.”

 

Ackermanns Fashion Plates July 1815: Walking Dress

Vol XIV, no. lxxix, plate 4

 

I’m struck by the beautiful mantle of oh so fashionable celestial blue the lady of plate 4 has draped about her shoulders to keep her warm on what looks to be a rather windy day. Made of twilled silk, it is “richly embroidered at the ends in shaded silks, composing roses or lilies of the valley.” The lady’s stockings are made of “patent silk,” a term which I have not encountered before. Fairchild’s Dictionary of Textiles lists patent cord, patent flannel, patent twist, and others, but no “patent silk”…

 

Ackermanns Fashion Plates July 1815, plate 5: Evening Dress

Vol XIV, no lxxix

 

Can you guess how the stripes of the evening dress of plate 5 were made?  By interspersing “folds of satin of Pomona green and white” between tull. Was it made in a factory, I wonder, or did some seamstress spend hours and hours sewing rows of satin on that delicate hexagonal mesh? The ribbon adoring the waist and the sleeves is likewise trimmed with net edged with satin ribbon. Roses and appliquéd lilies of the valley head the gown’s blonde lace flounce. A striking dress, is it not?

Ackermann's fashion plates July 1815: text

 

Like last month’s needlework patterns, July’s also include a bouquet-like pattern. Are young ladies’ fancies turning to hints of summer love?

Ackermann's July 1815 Needlework patterns

 

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave

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