Robert Southey

Fashion.—Total Change in the English Costume.—Leathern Breeches.—Shoes.—Boots.—Inventors of new Fashions.—Colours.—Female Fashions.—Tight lacing.—Hair-dressing.—Hoops.—Bustlers.—Rumps.—Merry-Thoughts and Pads.

The caprice of fashion in this country would appear incredible to you, if you did not know me too well to suspect me either of invention or exaggeration. Every part of the dress, from head to foot, undergoes such frequent changes, that the English costume is at present as totally unlike what it was thirty years ago, as it is to the Grecian or Turkish habit. These people have always been thus capricious. Above two centuries ago a satirist here painted one of his countrymen standing naked, with a pair of shears in one hand, and a piece of cloth in the other, saying

When J. was a school-boy every body wore leathern breeches, which were made so tight that it was a good half-hour's work to get them on the first time. The maker was obliged to assist at this operation:—observe, this personage is not called a tailor, but a maker of breeches,—tailors are considered as an inferior class, and never meddle with leather. When a gentleman was in labour of a new pair of leathern breeches, all his strength was required to force himself into them, and all the assistant-operators to draw them on: when it was nearly accomplished, the maker put his hands between the patient's legs, closed them, and bade him sit on them like a saddle, and kick out one leg at a time, as if swimming. They could not be buttoned without the help of an instrument. Of course they fitted like another skin; but woe to him who was caught in the rain in them!—it was like plucking a skin off to get out of them.

The shoes—I am not going back beyond a score of years in any of these instances—were made to a point in our unnatural method; they were then rounded, then squared, lastly made right and left like gloves to fit the feet. At one time the waistcoat was so long as to make the wearer seem all body; at another time so short that he was all limbs. The skirts of the coat were now cut away so as almost to leave all behind bare as a baboon, and now brought forward to meet over the thigh like a petticoat. Now the cape was laid flat upon the shoulders, now it stood up straight and stiff like an implement of torture, now was rounded off like a cable. Formerly the half-boot was laced: the first improvement was to draw it on like a whole-boot; it was then discovered that a band at the back was better than a seam, and that a silken tassel in front would be highly ornamental, and no doubt of essential use. By this time the half-boot was grown to the size of the whole one. The Austrians, as they were called, yielded to the Hessians, which, having the seams on each side instead of down the back, were more expensive, and therefore more fashionable. Then came an invention for wrinkling the leather upon the instep into round folds, which were of singular utility in retaining the dirt and baffling the shoeblack. At length a superior genius having arisen among boot-makers, the wheel went completely round, and at this present time every body must be seen in a pair of whole-boots of this great man's making.

"Almost all new fashions offend me," says Feyjoo, "except those which either circumscribe expense, or add to decency."—I am afraid that those reasons are practically reversed in England, and that fashions are followed with avidity in proportion as they are extravagant and indecorous—to use the lightest term. The most absurd mode which I have yet heard of was that of oiling the coat and cold-pressing it; this gave it a high gloss, but every particle of dust adhered to it, and after it had been twice or thrice worn it was unfit to be seen. This folly, which is but of very late date, was too extravagant to last, and never I believe extended into the country. I asked my tailor one day, who is a sensible man in his way, who invented the fashions. "Why, sir," said he, "I believe it is the young gentlemen who walk in Bond-street. They come to me, and give me orders for a new cut, and perhaps it takes, and perhaps it does not. It is all fancy, you know, sir." This street serves as a Prado or Alameda for all the fops of rank, and happy is he who gets the start in a new cut; in the fall of a cape, the shape of a sleeve, or the pattern of a button. This emulation produces many abortive attempts, and it is amusing to see the innovations which are daily hazarded without ever attaining to the dignity of a fashion.

Colour, as well as shape, is an affair of fashionable legislation. Language is nowhere so imperfect as in defining colours; but if philosophical language be deficient here, the creative genius of fashion is never at a loss for terms. What think you of the Emperor's eye, of the Mud of Paris, and Le soupir ÉtouffÉ,—the Sigh supprest? These I presume were exotic flowers of phraseology, imported for the use of the ladies; it is however of as much importance to man as to woman, that he should appear in the prevailing colour. My tailor tells me I must have pantaloons of a reddish cast, "All on the reds now, sir!" and reddish accordingly they are, in due conformity to his prescription. It is even regulated whether the coat shall be worn open or buttoned, and if buttoned, whether by one button or two, and by which. Sometimes a cane is to be carried in the hand, sometimes a club, sometimes a common twig; at present the more deformed and crooked in its growth the better. At one time every man walked the streets with his hands in his coat pocket. The length of the neck-handkerchief, the shape, the mode of tying it, must all be in the mode. There is a professor in the famous Bondstreet, who, in lessons at half-a-guinea, instructs gentlemen in the art of tying their neck-handkerchiefs in the newest and most approved style.

The women have been more extravagant than the men;—to be more foolish was impossible. Twenty years ago the smaller the waist the more beautiful it was esteemed. To be shaped like a wasp was therefore the object of female ambition; and so tight did they lace themselves, or rather so tightly were they laced, for it required assistant strength to fasten their girths, that women have frequently fainted from the pressure, and some actually perished by this monstrous kind of suicide. About the same time they all wore powder; the hair at the sides was stuck out in stiff curls, or rolls, tier above tier, fastened with long double black pins; behind it was matted with pomatum into one broad flat mass, which was doubled back and pinned upon a cushion, against which the toupee was frizzed up, and the whole frosted over with powder, white, brown, pink, or yellow. This was the golden age of hairdressers; the ladies were completely dependent upon them, and obliged to wait, patiently or impatiently, for their turn. On important occasions, when very many were to be drest for the same spectacle, it was not unusual to submit to the operation over night, and sit up all night in consequence,—for to have lain down would have disordered the whole furniture of the upper story. The great hoop, which is now confined to the court, was then commonly worn in private parties. Besides this there were protuberances on the hips called bustlers, another behind which was called in plain language a rump, and a merry-thought of wire on the breast to puff out the handkerchief like a pouting pigeon. Women were obliged to sip their tea with the corner of their mouths, and to eat sideways. A yet more extraordinary costume succeeded, that of pads in front, to imitate what it must have been originally invented to conceal.

All these fashions went like the French monarchy, and about the same time; but when the ladies began to strip themselves, they did not know where to stop.

And these follies travel where the science and literature and domestic improvements of the English never reach! Well does Anguillesi say in his address to Fashion:

Not because she is free and industrious, great in peace and great in war, is triple England now so dear and so illustrious among us; not because that land proudly rejoices in her Newton, and in that great one by whom Othello and Hamlet are become immortal names. But because it has pleased thee, O powerful goddess, to attire thyself after the English mode,—every one speaks of that country. Hence it is that in fine emulation we are seen to dress like My-lord, and Italian matrons like the English My-lady.—Tr.