What Did Women Read in the 18th Century

Dolores's involvement in fashion history dates from her teenage years when vintage wearing apparel was widely available in thrift stores.

1787 fashion plate

Victoria and Albert Museum, London; wikimedia commons; PD

The 18th-Century Fashion Revolution

The 18th century revolutionized fashion concepts as well as economic, political, and philosophical ideals. The strong, formal, and elaborately ornate styles of the early 1700s gave mode, by the end of the century, to simpler garb. The French aristocracy clung to the lavish displays of court fashion just as they held on to their luxurious lifestyles, despite changes in the economy. They ended upwardly racking up debt as high as their hairdos.

As the century progressed, English styles influenced the formerly style-offset French. Simpler garments based on pastoral life came into vogue in England and moved into Europe. In the late 18th century, English language influence relied on a sense of propriety rather than the decadent ornamentation of the aristocracy.

New technologies, materials, and communication offered the merchant class opportunity to wear stylish garments. By the mid-1760s, women's magazines offered even rural women glimpses of current styles. The introduction of cotton and faster production techniques gave women the ability to become manner consumers.

The cute gowns associated with the French aristocracy were worn at court every bit ceremonial apparel. The more comfortable wearable worn at home called "undress" gradually replaced the cumbersome, very expensive look of courtroom clothes. Where once the hoi-polloi looked to the elite for style, the elite began to lose their luster.

At-a-Glance Fashion Changes

• New technologies speed up material product
• France was greatest fashion influencer
• Court attire and hair became extreme and flamboyant
• Century ended with simple, neoclassical styles

Textiles and Trade

The vesture industry offered occupations in spinning, weaving, tailoring, dress making, glove making, lace making, for clothiers, and trade.

Europe produced wool and linen textiles. It imported silk from the Far East and cotton wool, chintz, and muslin from India. In the late 1700s, England exported fabric to the New World where raw cotton had become a commodity sent to England for production.

While the upper class had wear fabricated for them, commoners still spun, wove, and made their own garments. The urban underclass purchased used goods from dealers. Early in the century, habiliment was very expensive but new inventions and the increased availability of cotton brought costs down in subsequently years.

The flying shuttle, invented in 1733, increased the speed of weaving. In 1785, Cartwright'south power loom made weaving even faster. Eli Whitney'due south cotton wool gin (1793), later improved by Hogden Holmes, was based on India'due south churka (an early on cotton gin) which removed the seeds from the boll to speed upward product. The automobile led to America's dominance in the cotton market besides as the enslavement of millions of Africans.

Europe'southward beautifully patterned silks permeated manner in the early 1700s. By the century'due south end, soft muslin from Bharat replaced heavier garments.

Mantua in bazzare blueprint

Metropolitan Museum of Fine art; wikimedia eatables; Public Domain

Early 1700s

Slender, asymetrical curves and soft drapery dominated women's costumes of the early 18th century. France greatly influenced women's styles in clothing and the decorative arts.

The mantua was a gown made of i long piece of material draped over the shoulders. The loose-fitting bodice was not boned or stiffened. Worn without a corset, a mantua began every bit a comfortable garment only evolved over the years into a more formal gown. Fabric was fatigued up and pulled back to reveal the petticoat. The silk damask fabric hung in soft pleats at the top to a belted waist and hung down into a railroad train. The train was later taken up and draped.

Gown fabric featured assuming, large-patterned silks, often contrasting with evidently satins in soft blues and pinks, or nighttime browns and greens.

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A curt jacket-like version of a matua called a pet-en-lair fell to the genu early on then shortened as the century progressed.

Hoops came into vogue by 1710. Cone-shaped hoops fabricated of whale bone (actually baleen) were sewn into heavy petticoats. By the 1720s, dome-shaped hoops increased the size of skirts.

At the time, petticoats could be obviously or made of a luxurious fabric. Pulled-dorsum gowns often revealed petticoats of contrasting cloth. Or a printed gown fabric was worn over a petticoat made of plain material in the same color as the gown.

Bell-shaped sleeves concluded at the elbow and featured lace or ruffles.

Court etiquette demanded rigid, formal attire. Women wore corsets that accentuated an extremely stiff posture. Called stays, corsets were made of stiffened fabric with boning in front and back. They laced in dorsum, in front, or at the sides. Court costume was made of high-quality, expensive materials including silks, satins, and taffeta.

Early 18th century hair styles were fairly simple, with hair waved loosely effectually the face up. False ringlets and cushions added volume. Long tresses were drawn up into buns on the crown of the head. Women powdered their hair for formal occasions.

Madame Pompadour, 1756

Painting past Francois Boucher; wikimedia commons; Public domain

The Mid-1700s

Skirts widened mid-century and courtroom clothes took on the excessive styles frequently associated with the 18th century. In the 1730s, silhouettes narrowed in front and dorsum only widened through the apply of panniers, a type of hoop added to each hip.

Pannier (pronounced "pahn-yay") means basket in French. Wicker contraptions attached near the hips added width to skirts creating a swaying upshot when women walked, revealing more of the leg than in the past. Past 1740, panniers expanded to extreme widths which made it difficult to enter a doorway. Excessive widths drew ridicule from many fronts and caused men to complain that women now took upwardly too much space.. This way remained a staple of court dress until 1760.

Gowns and petticoats became elaborately draped and embellished with ruffles and lace. Open bodices and skirts displayed petticoats and stomachers often made of the same material as the gown then that the costume seemed all one slice.

Stomachers were inverted triangles inserted at the center of an open bodice and held in place with side tabs. Stiff stomachers could be decorated with artificial flowers, ribbons, ruffles, and lace.

Squared or oval necklines were worn depression. Sleeves were worn tight to the elbow.

During this fourth dimension, tight curls resembling sheep's wool and called tete de mouton puffed out on either side of the face. Tight curls were subsequently replaced by sausage curls worn at the sides of the caput.

The mantua remained popular and maintained the back pleats that would later exist known at Watteau pleats, after the painter who depicted the style in 19th-century portraiture. In the 18th century, the style became known equally "robe à la Francaise."

A jacket style called "casaquin" fitted tightly at the bodice simply flared out below the waist to accommodate extreme skirt widths.

Madame Pompadour reigned every bit a fashion icon of the mid 1700s. Mistress of King Louis XV, Mme Pompadour was educated, fashionable, and influential, remaining close adviser to the rex long later on the affair ended. A patron of the arts, Mme Pompadour (shown above) influenced Rococo in the arts, a way that featured soft curves and floral themes.

The robe à la Francaise (1740-1760) featured an open up front end and panniers.

Amsterdam Museum on wikimedia eatables; CC-Past-SA

Late 18th Century

By the belatedly 1760s, panniers gave way to hip pads creating a softer and more natural silhouette. Skirt fabric pulled through slits to form a bunched drape. False, cork-filled rumps, called bustles in the 19th century, emphasized the rear. Hemlines rose to display the leg higher up the ankle.

The Polonaise style of 1770-1785 reflected a growing interest in folk or pastoral costume. An underskirt was displayed past a separated over skirt that looped and puffed past ways of tapes and rings (retrieve Roman shades).

Pilus styles rose to great heights in the 1770s. Massive hairdos decorated with feathers, jeweled combs, ribbons, artificial flowers, fake birds, fruit, and other objects rose in complex structures. Pilus could be pulled up over wire framing. Faux hair pieces added to the volume. Tiny hats often perched at the pinnacle of this elaborate mode.

A growing interest in a more egalitarian society and economic system reduced interest in excessive garment and hair styles. English fashions that reflected sobriety encouraged the mode-conscious to emphasize propriety and responsibility. As this new Anglomania swept Europe, more women wore the robe a la' Anglaise, a garment with a somewhat fuller bodice fitted close to the waist in front and back that featured wrist length sleeves. Round gowns were worn close fronted to the hem.

Oddly enough, the much hated Marie Antoinette influenced way trends long afterward her execution. While spending time playing at being a uncomplicated country woman in a small chateau on the grounds of Versailles, Marie Antoinette wore muslin gowns made of imported fabric. The resulting penchant for imported fabrics devalued the French material trade just laid the background for 1790s styles. Her gambling, extravagant spending, and close association with her home country of Austria angered a population that suffered a poor economy and food shortages.

The late 18th century ushered in a neoclassical style based on Ancient Greek and Roman design. Light muslin gowns replaced layers of ornate finery. Where once Marie Antoinette was accused of indecency for wearing garments that resembled underwear (i.e. the chemise), those same styles became the norm. Corsets softened along with the new silhouette.

Past the 1790s, waistlines rose to only under the bust in a style called Empire. The look lasted into the early 1800s.

Polonaise style, circa 1775: shorter hemline and drawn-upwardly over-dress.

Undergarments

The chemise was a thin, total-cut linen or muslin apparel with a lace-edged neckline. Worn under everything else, the lace of the chemise could peek out over the edge of low cut necklines. A chemise savage to the knees and featured full sleeves to the elbow.

Petticoats came in a wide variety of styles, weights, and fabrics and ofttimes showed equally part of the costume, Fabric changed with the seasons, with linen and cotton worn in warmer months, wool flannel in winter. Calico, a good-quality finely printed cotton wool imported from India, was likewise used for petticoats.

Stays or corsets made of stiffened cloth helped maintain an erect posture. Whale bone, inserted through slots in the layered textile, created more stiffening. Open up-mode bodices could show a corset, in which case the stays would exist covered by the same fabric every bit the gown, or busy with ribbons and lace.

Drawers were non yet worn nether gowns.

Makeup and Jewelry

French ladies wore heavy lead-based cream as a foundation on the face and decolletage. Extremely pale faces had been in vogue since the Elizabethan era, and suggested that the wearer did not labor outdoors. Heavy makeup also covered wrinkles and blemishes. Obvious blemishes and scars were covered by tiny patches of cloth. These "beauty marks" carried symbolism related to politics and personality. Rouge added bright spots of color to cheeks and lips. Artificially darkened eyebrows were shaped and plucked. False eyebrows made of mouse skin were pasted in identify. The farthermost makeup style diminished toward the end of the century.

Necklaces could be made of concatenation or pearls. Pendants and crosses were popular as well. Jeweled hair pins and combs adorned the hair. Rings were not as common every bit earrings, cameos, pins, and watches. The end of the century saw simpler tastes in jewelry.

Outerwear

Full-cut cloaks could be talocrural joint length, articulatio genus length or lip length and were often hooded and featured fur or velvet trim. Calashes were hoods with congenital-in hoops that created accordian pleats that held the textile out away from the face.

When large panniers barbarous out of fashion, men's-wear type coats called redingotes came into vogue.

Large scarves called kerchiefs were worn around the neck. Shawls and wraps were worn indoors and out in cool weather.

Calash-style hood at the Metropolitan Museum of Fine art, NY

Downloaded by user PKM; wikimedia commons; PD

Stockings made of cotton, wool, or silk rose to the knee and were held in place by tied garters.

Shoes included backless slippers chosen mules. Dress shoes featured loftier heels, slightly pointed toes, and tongues with side pieces fastened over the instep.

Clogs or pattens, worn outdoors, in the countryside, or during choppy atmospheric condition, elevated the human foot above the footing.

Shoe, circa 1760

LA County Museum of Art; wikimedia commons; PD

For Farther Reading

Dress in France in the Eighteenth Century by Madeleine Delprerre translated by Caroline Beamish; Yale University Press; New Haven Connecticut; 1997

The Culture of Fashion by Christopher Breward; Manchester University Press; Manchester Uk and NY, NY; 1995

The Encyclopedia of Article of clothing and Way edited past Valerie Steele; Charles Scribner's Sons; NY; 2005

Survey of Historic Costume A History of Western Dress by Phyllis Thou Tortora and Keith Eubank; Fairchld Publications, Inc; NY; 2005

Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Fashion in Item by Avril Hart

Eighteenth Century French Way Plates in Full Colour 64 Engravings From the "Galerie des Modes" 1778 - 1787 by Stella Blum

Costume Close-Up Clothing Construction and Design 1750 - 1790 by Linda Baumgarten, John Watson, and Florine Carr

The Dress of the People Everyday Fashion in 18th Century England by John Styles

Questions & Answers

Question: Who were the influential designers from 1700 to 1800?

Answer: Many historic costumes of the 1700s appear in museums without information on the designer.

Marie Jeanne Bertin opened a store in 1777. The Duchess of Chartres introduced Bertin's designs to Marie Antoinette who brought the designer to Versailles to create gowns for the queen. Bertin exported fashion to European courts including London, Lisbon, and Venice.

A German shoemaker named Effien designed ornate footwear of the solar day. Bourdon was a French creator of elaborate, bejeweled shoes.

Legros founded the Academy of Pilus Dressing, and Leonard Autie, hairdresser to Marie Antoinette, created many of the famous farthermost hair designs that rose to nearly four feet in height.

Question: I am in a play and I am trying to dress as accurately as I can to a queen in 1735. Is in that location annihilation that would exist very important to include in my queen's costume from 1735?

Reply: I remember the question is - what would be doable? Royalty of that time catamenia wore very expensive fabrics similar silk. Look at fashions of the menstruum to see a beautiful dress that you could actually make. The styles were complicated so that should be something to think about as well. You may non desire to exist likewise authentic with materials every bit the cost would exist significant.

May I propose a book - "Making Georgian and Regency Costumes for Women" past Lindsey Holmes.

© 2017 Dolores Monet

Lily on August 21, 2019:

Who was the manner designers of the mid 18th century?

Dolores Monet (author) from Eastward Coast, United States on April 12, 2019:

Hi Miro - the grand, super fancy outfits portrayed in many painting show garments worn for court or special occasions. Simpler version of the same styles were worn for solar day vesture, walking, and riding. Working people wore simplified versions of the grander styles and were made of cheaper materials. Working women wore aprons to protect their dresses.

The other information you requested is in the commodity. For more information read one of the books suggested above.

Miro on April 11, 2019:

Howdy Dolores, I'thousand a schoolhouse student and im school nosotros're writing nigh clothes then I chose to write most the dresses and gowns of the 1700s. I have some questions that I'd like to ask.

Get-go of all How were the dresses usually built, coursettes? ect.

And also i would like to know, did they always wear these excessive and "over the tiptop" dresses?

Dolores Monet (author) from East Declension, United states of america on March 02, 2019:

Hello Kimberly - a type of fabric called jeane, a cotton fiber/wool alloy was worn by Italian sailors even before the 1700s. Serge de Nimes was produced in France of cotton. In the late 1700s, denim was produced for working people in the USA. But these were not quite the jeans we know today. Rivets were added in the American West for miners in 1872. Zippers were not invented until the late 1920s.

Sandals as we know them were non used by fashionable people in the 1700s as too much of the foot was exposed.

Girls dressed in modified styles that women wore. In portraits they nearly look like miniature adults, but that was for special occasions. Day wear for girls would exist somewhat more comfortable and were not worn with corsets.

Kimberly on March 01, 2019:

Did women habiliment sandals back in the 1700s? What did girls wear back then in the 1700s? Was there a such thing as jeans in the tardily Seventeen Hundreds?

Dolores Monet (author) from East Coast, United States on Apr 09, 2018:

Howdy Liv - casual wear worn around the home would be uncomplicated with no wide panniers and less embellishment.

Peasant women wore shorter skirts, above the ankles. Fabrics for peasant wear were coarse weave linen, occasionally cotton (prints), and wool. Natural colors were easier to manage and cheaper to purchase than most bright colors. The color blue, for instance, made of woad washed out and faded. Linen for the mutual folk was ecru or natural linen color. Yellow was an easily plant and afforded dye. Rust, subtle pink, and off shades of red were common. Women wore head covering, a coif with a scarf, or wide brimmed hat. Aprons and smocks protected article of clothing. Clogs kept feet dry out.

You can find images of peasant costume on Google images. Then many are very attractive. Mixing prints was pop. Of grade how peasants and working people dressed varied greatly by state.

liv on Apr 07, 2018:

what sort of things did people wear casually back then? What kind of things were the peasants into?

Dolores Monet (author) from E Coast, The states on October eleven, 2017:

How-do-you-do Natalie - my fashion articles are a general overview about styles worn by the aristocracy. If y'all are going to write celebrated fiction, I would recommend reading several books on the subject area including full general history too equally costume history. I would like to address wear that regular people wore but more images of the elite are available. Thanks!

Natalie Frank from Chicago, IL on October 10, 2017:

Great article! I have been doing a trivial of writing lately gear up in different time periods.and have gotten caught up in the inquiry (what did we ever do before Google?) This article is very interesting and will be suite useful for a piece I'1000 writing. Thanks as well for thwhen follow. I hope to come across your comments on some of my artocles.

Dolores Monet (author) from Due east Coast, The states on October 03, 2017:

Hi Dora - while they may have endured farthermost discomfort in order to look good at formalism occasions, I tin can't actually admire them. France, at the fourth dimension, was in economic duress. The elite partied on and lived lavishly despite the struggles of regular people leading to a bloody revolution. It did not work out well for the aristocracy! Thanks!

Dora Weithers from The Caribbean on September 29, 2017:

I admire the women of the era you lot depict for their commitment to tradition and civilisation. They stood for something despite the price and the discomfort. I also admire today's women who mange to combine standard with condolement. I like your manner posts. Give thanks y'all.

Dolores Monet (writer) from E Coast, United states on September 29, 2017:

Hullo Nicole - the featured costumes were not for comfort only intended to display social status. Regular folks may have attempted to imitate the looks to some extent, just mutual people dressed in a more than sensible fashion. They had to in society to piece of work. "Undress" signified much more comfy garments worn at home.

Dolores Monet (author) from East Declension, United states on September 29, 2017:

Hi Doug - they weren't much on hair washing in those days. I am going to add a bit more info to the makeup section. It'due south so hard to proceed this from running likewise long. Small patches similar to what was later called "beauty marks" could hide scars too. Pale faces indicated that the wearer was noble and did not work outdoors.

Kitty Fields from Summerland on September 29, 2017:

Dolores - I always savor your historical fashion posts. I'thousand a big history buff, and I went to school for fashion design...so these are right up my alley! That existence said, I don't know how these women were ever comfortable or absurd. LOL

Doug Westward from Missouri on September 28, 2017:

From what I have read, the wigs on men where considering they didn't have hair or they hadn't washed information technology in a while (a long while) and the face paint was to comprehend their minor pox scares. Sound correct?

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