by C. Willett
12 The Gurney papers, 1661.
13 Bulwer: Artificial Changeling, 1653.
14 Verney Memoirs, 1639.
15 Mrs. Centlivre mentions ‘rump furbelows,’ meaning this type of bustle, in The Platonic Lady, 1707.
16 Histoire du Costume.
17 Ashton: Ballads, etc., of the Seventeenth Century.
18 ‘Frock’ probably meant the countryman’s smock-frock.
19 The Rover, 1677.
20 Swift: Mrs. Harris’s Petition, 1699.
IV
1711—1790
ALMOST the whole of costume in this period was dominated by the hoop, which gave woman’s skirt a special importance and underclothes a peculiar significance.
We naturally associate this fashion with its predecessor, the farthingale of the sixteenth-seventeenth centuries, and with the Victorian crinoline which followed it a century later. But although the three types had the same primary function of expressing class distinction, their erotic associations differed. As Englishwomen did not wear drawers until the nineteenth century, the thighs were bare beneath the petticoats, so that, with the farthingale and the hoop, accidental exposures must have been embarrassing. It is noticeable, however, that the Elizabethan-Jacobean literature seldom dwells on the erotic possibilities of such accidents; the farthingale was sufficiently substantial and the material of the skirt generally weighty enough to make exposure unlikely.
But the eighteenth-century hoop was otherwise, and the skirt material flimsier. Not only was the hoop liable to be blown about or even turned inside-out, but it was the fashion, in walking, to give it a side tilt exposing the under-petticoats. The attitude is described by Mrs. Haywood in The Female Spectator (1744–6): ‘What manner some ladies come into public assemblies—they do not walk but straddle and sometimes run with a kind of frisk and jump—throw their enormous hoops almost in the face of those who pass them. . . . The men of these times are strangely happy; in my time a fine woman was not to be gained without a long application, but now a game of romps reduces the vanquished fair to accept of what conditions the conqueror is pleased to give.’ The same author adds: ‘If the ladies would retrench a yard or two of their extended hoops they now wear they would be much less liable to the many embarrassments one frequently sees them in when walking in the streets. How often do the angular corners of such immense machines as we sometimes see, tho’ held up almost to the armpits, catch hold of obstacles. . . .’ Thus: ‘A large flock of sheep were driving to the slaughterhouse and an old ram ran full butt into the footway where his horns were immediately entangled in the hoop of a fine lady as she was holding it up on one side, as the genteel fashion is. In her fright she let it fall down (on the ram). She attempted to run—he to disengage himself; she shriek’d, he baa’d, and the dog barked. Down fell the lady and a crowd of mob shouted. . . . Her gown and petticoat which before were yellow, the colour so much the mode at present, were now most barbarously painted with a filthy brown.’
While the woman writer viewed the hoop fashion with indignation and disgust, the male observer might complain of its inconvenience while recognizing its erotic possibilities.
What fancy can the petticoat surround
With the capacious hoop of whalebone bound,
exclaimed the poet Gay (1714); Soame Jenyns is more explicit:
Dare I in such momentous points advise,
I should condemn the hoop’s enormous size;
Of ills I speak by long experience found,
Oft have I trod the immeasurable round,
And mourn’d my shins bruis’d black with many a wound.
Nor should the tighten’d stays, too straightly lac’d,
In whalebone bondage gall the slender waist.
Nor waving lappets should the dancing fair,
Nor ruffles edg’d with dangling fringes wear.
Let each fair maid, who fears to be disgrac’d Ever be sure to tie her garters fast;
Lest the loos’d string, amidst the public ball,
A wish’d for prize to some proud fop should fall,
Who the rich treasure shall triumphant show,
And with warm blushes cause her cheeks to glow.1
We gather, from The Spectator of 1712, that a popular amusement was to send young ladies sky-high on swings. ‘In this diversion there are very many pretty shrieks, not so much for fear of falling off as that their petticoats should untie. The lover who swings his lady is to tie her clothes very close together with his hat band before she admits him to throw up her heels.’ By such means she would claim that ‘he cannot tell the colour of her garters.’ A somewhat similar ‘exposition’ is a popular amusement at fun fairs to-day.
Evidently the hoop had dynamic functions as well as the merely static such as we see in the stately portraits in picture galleries. There one gets an impression of a vast expanse of skirt forming a solid foundation immobilized on the ground. We do not appreciate that the hoop, in action, had the liveliest propensities; that it enabled the wearer to reveal the outline of the legs through the slender under-petticoat. Unlike the farthingale, the hoop of the eighteenth century and the crinoline of the nineteenth, being flexible, possessed a peculiar erotic attraction in movement; as indicated in a song by Soame Jenyns:
Oh, torture me not, for love’s sake,
With the smirk of those delicate lips,
With that head’s dear significant shake,
And the toss of the hoop and the hips!
The centre of erotic attraction had, in fact, changed. During the seventeenth century it had been the breasts, either completely exposed or very nearly so. One notes, for instance, that all through the Restoration drama the breasts are specially admired and freely spoken of, and that the women characters accept such compliments with approval. The last occasion that a male character pays such a direct compliment to a woman is in one of Farquhar’s comedies (1707). From about 1710, when the hoop became fashionable and the interest shifted to the legs, what might be called the ‘breast taboo’ began, at first in direct conversation between the sexes, later in the novel, and ultimately in poetry. A striking illustration of this taboo may be seen in a number of portraits of young women painted during the early part of the seventeenth century; in these originally the breasts were completely or nearly completely exposed, but at some date in the eighteenth century that region has been painted out, and we now see a vague slab of unnatural flesh as an improvement on Nature, and a tribute to the ‘new look.’
It has become almost an established custom that the male interest —and consequently the female fashion—has oscillated in this manner between those two physical regions; and that whichever happens to be temporarily in the ascendant is the more freely spoken of, while its rival is veiled in prudish euphemism, legs becoming ‘limbs’ and breasts the ‘figure.’
The career of the eighteenth-century hoop, as in the case of the Victorian crinoline, was preceded and followed by the bustle, an erotic device to emphasize the appropriate region. By the addition of ‘false hips’ (which have subsequently been called panniers) the hoop was developed laterally and so produced a curious feature, unique in feminine fashions. Henry Fielding observed how many fashions were but forms of class distinction, or, as he put it: ‘Numberless are the devices made use of by the people of fashion of both sexes, to avoid the pursuit of the vulgar. . . . Of all the articles of distinction the hoop hath stood the longest, and with the most obstinate resistance. Instead of giving way, this, the more it hath been pushed, hath increased the more; till the enemy hath been compelled to give over the pursuit from mere necessity; it being found impossible to convey seven yards of hoop into a hackney-coach, or to slide with it behind a counter.’2
This extraordinary exaggeration of the lateral dimensions of the skirt seemed an attempt to deny any suggestion of sex attraction, as though seeking to insist that the huge skirt was essentially to indicate social rank; one notes that it provoked hilarious comment from the men.
Make your
petticoats short that a Hoop eight yards wide
May decently shew how your garters are tied. (1773.)
A discussion between two gentlemen on the stage expressed the masculine attitude towards this momentous subject:
‘I would have her begin with lengthening her petticoats, covering her shoulders and wearing a cap upon her head.’
‘Don’t you think a tapering leg, falling shoulders and fine hair delightful objects, Sir John?’
‘And therefore ought to be concealed. ’Tis their interest to conceal them; when you take from the men the pleasure of imagination there will be a scarcity of husbands.’3
There in plain prose is the principle of sex attraction in costume; here it is more gracefully expressed by the poet:
At times to veil is to reveal,
And to display is to conceal;
Mysterious are your laws!
The vision’s finer than the view;
Her landscape Nature never drew
So fair as fancy draws.4
We may well suppose that both sexes found their fashions almost intolerable in very hot weather. In Italy, for example, at informal evening gatherings in summer, there was a measure of relaxation ‘the gentlemen being all in light night-caps and nightgowns (under which, I am informed, they wear no breeches) and slippers, and the ladies in their stays and smock-sleeves, tied with ribands, and a single lute-string petticoat; there is not a hat or a hoop to be seen. It is true this dress is called vestimenti di confidenza, and they do not appear in it in town but in their own chambers and that only during the summer months.’5
Male underclothing during this period preserved in the shirt its former qualities, though somewhat diminished. The habit of leaving much of the waistcoat unbuttoned to display the fine quality of the shirt was more than evidence of social rank; it appears to have had its attractions to the other sex. We are told ‘A sincere heart has not made half so many conquests as an open waistcoat.’6 But in other respects man’s underclothing was sinking into obscurity. This was due, in a great measure, to the closer fit of his suit, designed to exhibit the shape of his legs in breeches and stockings, leaving little opportunity for the display of garments beneath.
Towards the close of this period we find reference to the wearing of stays by ‘smart’ officers in the army.7 The term ‘smart’ was coming into vogue to indicate the well-dressed man, and for at least a century after the word implied tight-fitting garments which, of necessity, reduced underclothing to a very subordinate function, so that only the shirt front survived for display purposes. In women’s costume ‘smart’ came to mean ‘well cut’ but not necessarily tight-fitting.
With the latter part of the eighteenth century, man’s underclothing ceased to serve for sex attraction, a function it has never regained, while continuing—in the shirt front and cuffs—to indicate class distinction, until, in modern times, that too has disappeared.
MEN
I. THE SHIRT
Its essential shape remained unchanged. The bottom was cut square, with the usual side vents, and the back flap slightly longer than the front; the body and sleeves were ample and the material was gathered into the neckband. The beginning of the period, however, introduced some important changes.
Hitherto the front opening, edged with a narrow ‘jabot,’ had been concealed by the hanging cravat which was either flat or twisted into a ‘Steinkirk’ and reached nearly to the waist, the upper part of the waistcoat being left unbuttoned. From about 1710 the hanging cravat was commonly dispensed with so that the jabot—or frilled border of the central opening—becoming more elaborate, often embroidered, was exposed to view, and allowed to project between the gap of the unbuttoned waistcoat. With this mode the cravat became a horizontal neckcloth, folded round the neck, at first narrow and later developing into a stock. By the end of this period the stock became deep enough to be a true ‘choker,’ buckled or tied at the back.
The neckband of the shirt, formerly quite narrow, became higher and developed into a collar attached to the shirt, though concealed by the neckcloth, if such was worn. Leloir8 describes it as high enough to be turned down over the border of the neckcloth but this does not seem to have been a common English mode until the end of this period. The narrow neckband was closed by a single button; with an attached collar this might require two or even three, set one above another, or, in the absence of a neckcloth, buttoning might be replaced by a ribbon threaded through two holes in the neckband and loosely tied across. The buttons appear to have been the Dorset thread type.9 The jabot varied much in its width and depth. The Spectator of July 1711 describes ‘his new silk waistcoat which was unbuttoned in several places to let us see that he had a clean shirt on which was ruffled down to his middle.’ When, after about 1760, the waistcoat was usually buttoned higher the amount of jabot exposed was necessarily much reduced.
FIG. 29. SHIRTS. ‘CRICKET ON THE ARTILLERY GROUND, WOOLWICH,’ BY FRANCIS HAYMAN, R.A.
The jabot was popularly known as ‘chitterlons’ or ‘chitterlings.’10 Parson Woodforde (1782) mentions: ‘I bought a piece of Holland for shirts at 3/ a yard; for half a yard of cambric for chitterlons 5/.’ It was essentially the display feature of the shirt and its quality—and perhaps its extent—was an outward and visible sign of the wearer’s social position, being inconvenient, uncomfortable and readily soiled.
The sleeves were voluminous, with carefully pressed pleats along the outer side, and closed by a narrow wristband, buttoned. To this was usually, but by no means always, attached a ruffle. Roderick Random, 1748, possessed ‘half a dozen ruffled shirts, as many plain.’ (But whether the distinction referred to the wrists or to the jabot we cannot tell.) The ruffle, of lace or cambric, often embroidered, was variable in size, tending to become smaller towards the close of the period, when those imbued with democratic principles, such as Fox and his friends, discarded this symbol of class distinction (figure 30).
During the first half of the century the large open coat cuff allowed the lower part of the shirt-sleeve to protrude; later as the coat-sleeve became a closer fit only the ruffle was visible. Occasionally, during the first half of the century, the coat cuff was slit up at the side and the ruffle of the shirt was carried up the gap for a few inches.
The function of the ruffle was to indicate that the wearer was not a ‘worker,’ at least with his hands. Although Adam Smith in 1776 declared that ‘a creditable day-labourer would be ashamed to appear in public without a linen shirt’ it was certainly not ornamented with jabot and ruffles.
Although the ruffle was often made detachable for washing purposes the jabot was not; consequently a man of fashion would need a large number of shirts. The Tatler (1710) mentions a fop who ‘wears twenty shirts a week.’
FIG. 30. MAN’S SHIRT. FRENCH, c. 1750
FIG. 31. CHEMISE, AFTER 174O
In attempting to date specimens of shirts of this period—and equally in attempting to date portraits by the shirt displayed—we have to allow for the considerable variations due to personal taste and to the occasion when they were worn. Much can be learnt from the statuary and monumental effigies of the time. There was, for instance, the negligée costume, so often modelled by Roubiliac, in which the neck of the shirt is left gaping, the collar loosely turned down, sometimes with a ribbon band fastening, sometimes with buttons visible; the shirt itself may or may not show the top of a jabot. With such a costume the wig is seldom worn, its place being generally taken by the informal indoor cap. But in ‘full dress’ with wig the shirt is closed and a neckcloth worn concealing the upright collar.
FIG. 32. SHIRT. FROM THE BUST OF L. F. ROUBILIAC BY HIMSELF
We have also to remember that the earlier modes of the flat hanging cravat and the twisted ‘Steinkirk’ did not entirely disappear until about 1780. In Garrick’s play Bon Ton we read of ‘one of the knots of his tie hanging down his left shoulder and his fringed cravat nice twisted down his breast and thrust through his gold button-hole.’
Th
us, for half a century, hanging cravat and jabot were rival fashions; and sometimes the shirt-front would be enriched with jewelry. The waistcoat, unbuttoned above, might ‘display a brooch set with garnets, that glittered in the breast of his shirt, which was of the finest cambric, edged with right Mechlin.’ (Roderick Random, 1748.)
2. THE DRAWERS
These were usually short, tied in at the knees, and closed by a string fastening round the waist. From Somerville11 we hear of: ‘his drawers beneath his hanging paunch close ty’ed.’ And: ‘In his best trousers he appears and clean white drawers.’
Breeches are often mentioned as having ‘linings’ of washable material, presumably detachable for that purpose. Indeed the term ‘linings’ to denote washable drawers was still employed by the artisan till the end of the nineteenth century. Roderick Random describes ‘our money sewed between the lining and waistband of our breeches.’ When the breeches became closer-fitting, Jeremy Bentham, about 1770, mentions taking a long country walk ‘in a pair of breeches woefully tight’—the drawers presumably became shorter and tighter too.
Although the garment was generally short it was not invariably so. Benjamin Franklin describes how ‘during a hot Sunday in June 1750 I sat in my chamber with no other clothes on than a shirt and a pair of long linen drawers.’12
The drawers, in the eighteenth century, had entirely lost whatever power of sex attraction they may once have possessed; The Spectator of 1711 wrote with disapproval of Mrs. Aphra Behn’s comedy in which, as already mentioned, the garment had been exhibited on the stage in an amorous setting. Sex attraction devices of one generation are so often disapproved by the next, either because of their indelicacy or their inefficiency.
A curious glimpse of a bit of the garment may sometimes be obtained in the marble effigies of semi-recumbent figures, between 1720 and 1740, where the knee-buttons of the breeches have been left gaping above the line of the rolled up stockings on the outer side of the leg; the space could only be occupied by the undergarment—a device reminiscent of the former fashion of ‘slashing’; we have not seen it in paintings, where the white pigment would be too conspicuous (figure 33).