Regency England

“Show me the clothes of a country and I can write its history.”

— Anatole France (1844 – 1924)

The start of the nineteenth century has many echoes. Sometimes I can shut my eyes and see them, all the elegant men and women twirling round ballrooms to the lilt of the newly popular waltz. I belong to a generation of young women who grew up on the Regency stories of Georgette Heyer. One encounters in her literature (written mainly in the 1950s) nostalgia for a time “when men were men and women were women.”

Some of this has to do with the fact that the century started out with most of Europe at war. Nowadays we don’t see our wars as having much impact on fashion, save for the growing presence of camouflage fabric. Back in the early 1800s, however, most men enjoyed adopting the look of a cavalry man: boots, trousers and a jacket cut with a dash. The late English historian Arthur Bryant wrote a book on this period, and there was reason behind its title: The Age of elegance, 1812-1822. This was a time when on the eve of the great battle of Waterloo, the Duchess of Richmond held a ball in Brussels, where Wellington danced calmly through the evening until anxious aides brought him word of Napoleon’s massing troops. Even then, he didn’t leave until he bid his hostess a polite farewell. It was also a time when those same ballroom attendees would ride out in their carriage the day after the battle to view the carnage in the fields.

P.S. Heading west again for a week. I’ll pick up on all this around the 11th.

When giving lectures for the “Decoration in the Age of Napoleon” exhibition, I often referred to Josephine Bonaparte as the Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy of her age. The comparison is apt, for Josephine epitomized the elegance of her times. She was a graceful dresser, diplomat, and a superb decorator, whose contributions to the Empire Style have been only lately fully acknowledged. An enchanting fictional account of her life was written by Sandra Gulland, and gives a vivid portrait of her joys and woes.

Her lithe, long-limbed figure was suited to the empire-waist gowns of Revolutionary France. In fact, Josephine enjoyed a dubious reputation during that time as the mistress of one of the five Directors, Paul Barras. Josephine and her friends were notorious for dampening their pale muslin gowns and wearing little or no undergarments. Ah, what one would give for an image of that! But in those pre-photography days, not even a salacious print remains to record such deeds. The printmakers of Paris were a timid lot compared to their counterparts in Georgian London.
 
 
 
 

The agent of Napoleon’s final downfall was known as “The Beau” to his Regency peers (behind his back of course). Arthur Wellesley, Lord Wellington, was the latest in a series of military men who enjoyed the allure of masculine fashion. He fought the French for a long time in the Peninsular War, in Portugal and France. After Napoleon’s escape from Elba and his Hundred Days, Wellington and a scattered group of Allied forces met Napoleon’s diminished army on the battlefield of Waterloo. Oddly enough, I see an echo of these men from the 1810s in the male models sashaying down the runways of New York Fashion Week. Tight pants and silhouetted jackets, for sure.

Wellington’s reward was to be made a Duke, and given a magnificent dwelling, Apsley House, in the heart of London for his peacetime duties, which included one year as Prime Minister (he was less successful in his subsequent career as a politician). His specially-devised boots, created with a shoemaker’s aid for hard riding purposes, are his legacy to fashion; we know them today as Wellingtons or Wellies.

And yet you might say that the Little Corporal had the last laugh on the Iron Duke. The cult of Napoleon remained enshrined in Frenchmen’s hearts as the century progressed, culminating in a revival (albeit brief) of the Bonaparte dynasty. And there are 1799 entries under Napoleon I, Emperor of the French (1769-1821) compared to the mere 167 for Wellington, Arthur Wellesley, Duke of, (1769-1852) in the Library’s online CATNYP catalogue. That’s fame!