The History of Underclothes

by C. Willett

  7. NIGHTCLOTHES

  According to Leloir the night-shift resembled the day-chemise except for being somewhat longer; and he states that (in France) over it was worn a ‘camisole’ or sleeping jacket tied with ribbons.

  On the head was worn a night-cap.

  FIG. 44. NIGHTCLOTHES. FROM AN ENGRAVING BY CHOFFARD AFTER BAUDOUIN, 1782

  * * *

  1 The Art of Dancing, 1730.

  2 The Covcnt Garden Journal, I 752.

  3 Garrick: Bon Ton, 1775.

  4 John Logan: Ode to Women, 1770.

  5 Lady Mary Wortley-Montague: Letters, 1753.

  6 The Tatler, 1710.

  7 One is described with ‘his stays laced’ in General Burgoyne’s comedy, The Lord of the Manor, 1781.

  8 Histoire du Costume.

  9 An advertisement for some stolen garments (Daily Advertiser, January 29, 1755) mentions ‘7 full-trimmed shirts, 5 of which have one buttonhole at the wrist and a thread button; 2 shifts with 3 flat thread buttons on each.’

  10 This popular name for a goffered material is of even greater antiquity: ‘I learned to make ruffs like calves’s chitterlings.’—Ulpian Fulwell: Like will to Like, 1568.

  11 The Officious Messenger, 1730.

  12 Autobiography.

  13 Henry Fielding: The Miser, 1733.

  14 A comedy by General Burgoyne, 1781.

  15 Diary of a Country Parson, April 24, 1782.

  16 Francis Paget Hett: Memoirs of Susan Sibbald, 1926.

  17 Marchant Diary, 1716.

  18 A hooped petticoat cost 17/- in 1731 and another 10/6 in 1732. A cane French hoop cost 18/–,—Essex Records, Chelmsford.

  19 G. Eland: Purefoy Letters, 1931.

  20 Lady’s Magazine, 1786.

  21 ‘A scarlet quilted petticoat, 14/5. 2 dimothy and 2 flannel petticoats, 12/–.’—Essex Records, Chelmsford.

  ‘7 yards of dimothy for her petticoats, 10/6.’—Ibid.

  22 Purefoy Letters, 1739.

  23 Purefoy Letters.

  24 Compare ‘the hips ashamed forsooth to wear a dicky.’ (P. Pindar, 1800).

  V

  1791—1820

  HITHERTO information on underclothes has had to be obtained, here and there, from chance references, from accidental revelations in contemporary illustrations and pictures, and from satirical and therefore biased comments. As he pieces together the fragmentary finds of knowledge, the historian always remains conscious of the gaps in his story as well as of the conflicting accounts from which it is composed.

  But from the close of the eighteenth century, apart from the increasing abundance of actual garments available in museums, a new source of information becomes available—the fashion magazine. The Lady’s Magazine or Entertaining Companion for the Fair Sex, from about 1786 onwards supplied a monthly ‘fashion article’; and with the dawn of the nineteenth century a number of others appeared. At first they ignored underclothes entirely, but gradually information even on that branch of fashions was allowed to intrude.

  While the fashion magazine is, for the historian, a fairly reliable source, we must not overlook the influence it exerted on contemporary taste. It gave readers all over the country descriptions of standard fashions, and was therefore instrumental in persuading a much more general adoption of current modes. It helped to establish uniformity at least throughout those classes who habitually accepted it as a guide, and enabled the middle class to imitate very closely the styles favoured by ‘the leaders of fashion.’ Incidentally it thus became increasingly difficult for those select few to preserve such modes as their exclusive property. Unfortunately for the historian, journals dealing primarily with masculine fashions did not appear till well into the Victorian era.

  The last quarter of the eighteenth century saw the introduction of two important changes of social habit, both destined to affect costume, and in particular the whole range of underclothes, to a notable extent. The first was the development, spreading from the middle class and eventually reaching far beyond it, of that peculiar attitude of mind associated with the term ‘prudery.’

  Previously the conventional attitude towards underclothing, for example, had been essentially frivolous; it was a legitimate topic for jests and practical jokes. It was part of the artificial comedy of sex. But prudery, which is an unconsciously exaggerated fear of sex, began to regard the subject more gravely. The fear extended to any kind of object or expression which seemed to be associated, however indirectly, with that dreadful, though commonplace, instinct. Underclothing, especially woman’s, came to be shrouded in a moral fog of reticence, at times very baffling to the enquiring historian.

  The development of prudery, destined later to become a national characteristic, was temporarily arrested by the Napoleonic wars from 1793 to 1814. During that epoch, as is so usual in war-time, the moral attitude swung, for the time being, in the opposite direction in the world of fashion. There, indeed, was not only prudery apparently suspended, but with it was banished much of the material forming our subject. Feminine underclothing was reduced to a point where it almost ceased to express either class distinction or sex attraction. For the latter purpose the physical features of the body were allowed full play; youth was in the ascendant and exercised its sway untrammelled. It was in this respect that the Regency period certainly struck an original note in feminine fashions. While the dress itself, aping the classical modes of ancient Greece, was but an indifferent attempt, though the first in our history, to revive a former style, what was really original was the discarding of superfluous undergarments. The Englishwoman of the fashionable world succeeded in reducing the total weight of her clothing to a couple of pounds. Such a thing had never previously been attempted in this country. The materials worn were sufficiently flimsy to reveal the real shape of the body. That this was a war-time method of sex attraction, rather than an expression of physical emancipation, differentiates the Regency modes from similar experiments in modern times.

  There was nothing corresponding to it in male attire. The masculine shirt-front continued to play its former role of announcing the gentleman, but the introduction of voluminous trousers tended, rather, to conceal the shape of the legs, formerly so conspicuous in tight breeches.

  The second important change of habit, which affected both sexes and their undergarments, was the singularly novel idea of personal cleanliness. This was introduced by the Macaronis of the 1770’s, and it was largely due to their influence that physical cleanliness became fashionable, an extraordinary revival of a habit which had lapsed since the days of the Romans.

  It was in this period that the figure of Beau Brummell—in his youth himself something of a Macaroni—stands out as the creator of this new ‘fashion.’ It would be more correct to say that he saw its possibilities as a symbol of social superiority, and established it as a permanent mark of the gentleman. ‘Cleanliness was the touchstone upon which his acquaintances were invariably tried, to detect in them any deviation from that virtue was a sufficient reason for his declining any further intercourse with them.’1 He made this a test, enunciating as the principle which denoted the gentleman, ‘no perfumes, but very fine linen, plenty of it, and country washing.’ He re-established, in fact, cleanliness as the social virtue, which had been in danger of lapsing.

  This new social virtue inevitably affected the condition of the garments worn next the skin and necessitated a larger supply of them. Insensibly the money spent on underclothes increased. Moreover this new standard of physical cleanliness created a new form of class distinction, limited for the time being to the fashionable world, and extending beyond it only slowly. The habit of frequently changing the underclothes—and the ability through wealth and leisure to make these changes—became, in fact, distinctive of gentlefolk.

  A philosopher of clothes, in 1800, contemplating the future of these social changes, might well have supposed that presently the human body, resplendent with soap and water, would emerge from its trappings into the light of day, an
d that underclothes were destined to shrivel into trivial accessories. But no philosopher who overlooked the possibilities of prudery could have foreseen the irony of embedding the Victorian body in layer upon layer of undergarments, all scrupulously clean, and all scrupulously hidden. Could he have foretold that those shrewd Victorians would be aware that the human body, freely exposed, is apt—after all—to be a sorry sight?

  MEN

  The turbulent years of this epoch produced a divergency in masculine fashions. The opening phase of the French Revolution excited a wave of sympathy in this country among those who held, in theory at least, democratic views on ‘equality.’ Charles Fox and his friends, for example, who had previously cultivated elegance in dress, now affected to despise the symbols of social refinement, and sported a style that was almost slovenly. ‘Dress never fell till the era of Jacobinism and Equality, in 1793 and 4. It was then that . . . the total abolition of buckles and ruffles . . . characterised the men.’2

  1. THE SHIRT

  This garment suffered, for a time, a singular eclipse. In most cases the shirt-front became completely concealed under the immense wrapping of the voluminous neckcloth; and the frill was omitted. The collar, even though five or six inches high (figure 45), was no longer visible; the less advanced school, however, allowed its edge to peep over the circumvallum that swathed the throat. Others, still more conservative, clung to the old insignia of rank with ‘frilled shirt and lace ends to neckerchief’3 (1802). This was usually reserved for evening dress; the ruffles at the wrist disappeared finally by the turn of the century. During the latter part of the 1790’s not even a glimpse of shirt-cuff was shown, the coat-sleeve reaching down on to the wrist. That thin white line which cut the community in two, separating the gentleman of leisure from the manual worker, was thought to be ‘undemocratic,’ a brief phase of pseudo-equality that did not last.

  It was soon after 1800 that George Brummell ‘was the first who revived and improved the taste for dress, and his great innovation was effected upon neckcloths; they were then worn without stiffening of any kind. He used to have his slightly starched. . . . The collar, which was always fixed to his shirt, was so large that before being folded down it completely hid his head and face, and the white neckcloth was at least a foot in height. The first coup d’archet was made with the shirt collar which he folded down to its proper size; and then—with his chin poked up to the ceiling—by the gentle and gradual declension of the lower jaw, he creased the cravat to reasonable dimensions.’4 ‘When he first appeared in this stiffened cravat the sensation was prodigious; dandies were struck dumb with envy and washerwomen miscarried.’5

  FIG. 45. (left) WEDDING SHIRT, c. 1795–1800: (right) MAN’S SHIRT, DATED (18)13

  A letter of Maria Josepha, Lady Stanley, comments on this mode :6

  1800. Pray, is it the fashion for the shirt collar to stand as high as the corners of the eyes? It is of consequence I should be informed before the new set I am making is finished. . . . Pray inform me if there is anything like a shirt annexed to the hideous ears you have described, because I think that part would be very comfortable to keep one snug from flies and sun. . . . There is nothing I have felt a stronger aversion to in men than that same fashion which I have seen in a few puppies.

  (The points of those high collars were known as ‘ears.’)

  By 1806 the ruffled shirt-front had become, once more, the general mode,7 both for day and evening wear, though as yet no shirt-cuff was visible. A variation, however, for day use then began to appear. ‘The bosom of the shirt now presents an air of peculiar neatness; the shirt itself is plaited and is without a frill, the opening being united with three or four linen buttons.’8 And by the next year ‘the day plaited shirt, buttoned, without frill, the waistcoat being buttoned only the lower two or three buttons,’9 was capturing the fancy of the ‘fashionables,’ the shirt collar at the back just beginning to show above the coat collar.

  The ruffled shirt persisted for evening. The delicate ruffle must easily have become soiled; hence, no doubt, the disproportionate number of shirts to drawers found in wardrobe inventories of the time. For instance, the naval officer, Captain Fremantle, had in 1810:—‘56 shirts’ in his wardrobe, of which 14 are described as ‘coarse,’10 and were perhaps nightshirts. But there are only nine pairs of drawers. He required thirty-two neckcloths, an article which was readily spoiled in the tying, so that plenty of spares were necessary. A well-dressed gentleman would require at least two clean shirts daily.

  With the return of the ruffled shirt most gentlemen, thanks to Brummell, wore a collar whose points commonly projected upwards in front with a wide gap between. The dandy would wear these collar-points projecting well up on to his cheeks.11 With the reaction from democratic principles the white cuff of the shirt began to peep forth from the coat-sleeve; the shirt cuff being unstarched and its side opening unfastened. Cuff links were seldom used. Towards the end of this period the shirt-cuff became rather more noticeable, and the cuff of the coat-sleeve was often left unbuttoned at the side.

  A specimen of this date, at the City Art Gallery, Leeds (Sanderson collection, figure 45) is of linen, the front 33 in. long, back 34 in., width 30 in., square cut with 12 in. side vents. Collar 5 in. deep, with one buttonhole at the base. Sleeves 19 in. long, 12 in. wide at the middle. Cuffs starched, 4 in. deep, square cut, buttoned at the base.

  A narrow reinforcing band 1 in. wide passes from the neck to the top of the sleeve, and a vertical band 2 in. wide descends 10 in. in front and behind the shoulder.

  A small gusset at the neck and a large one in the armpit.

  The front opening has no jabot edging.

  The stitching of the edge of the collar indicates that it was worn upright as a ‘winker’ and not turned over (which would have shown the less neat side of the stitches). Probably worn with a deep stock and full cravat.

  This shirt is marked with initials and ‘13.’ This is probably the date 1813.

  In spite of these changes of fashion there was a considerable number of men, especially the elders and professional men, who continued to wear the older style of day-shirt with frill. Portraits of the time are therefore somewhat contradictory, especially when they are of the seniors of that generation. As the war progressed, any original sympathy towards ‘equality’ faded, and a return to class distinctions was in a subtle manner indicated even in the shirt.

  The shirts of the first half of the nineteenth century are often difficult to date, being still ‘home made,’ and sometimes having had their fronts or cuffs renewed at a later date. A notable specimen in the Castle Museum, Norwich, is a ‘wedding shirt’ of fine cambric enriched with needle-point lace and drawn thread work showing initials and two entwined hearts at the base of the front opening, which is nine inches deep and without a frill (figure 45). There is a gusset in the armpit, and the sleeves, wide at the top (9 in. at the widest point) slope to a narrow wrist where they are embroidered to simulate a cuff. The length of the shirt is 29 in., width 27 in., side slits 9 in. deep, and the side slits and bottom are edged with embroidery. It was evidently to be worn with the tight buckskin breeches of the 1795–1800 period.

  A ‘dickey’ (or false shirt-front), originally known as a ‘Tommy’ (figure 46) is mentioned12 as a thing permissible in the country when fine dressing was impossible.

  For the purpose of dating shirts of the nineteenth century the following points are helpful, though not wholly reliable. The construction at the shoulder presents a small triangular gusset at the base of the neck with the point towards the collar, and a large gusset in the armpit. These features, seen first in the eighteenth century, continued in use until near the middle of the nineteenth, the armpit gusset surviving longer than the neck gusset.

  Until about 1840 a horizontal band, about 1 in. wide, was added along the top of the shoulder to reinforce the material. In the Leeds shirt (figure 45) of 1813 there is in addition a vertical band surrounding the shoulder seam and descending some 10 in. in
front and behind. This band was at first narrow, about 2 in. wide. It gradually became wider until by about 1840 it was often 5 in. wide, when the horizontal band above was no longer required. This broad vertical band survived, in evening shirts, till the end of the century. The bottom of the shirt was cut square until about 1850 when it became curved, sometimes markedly so, a shape which continued up to the first World War.

  FIG. 46. (left) FOOTED LONG DRAWERS, 1795: (above fight) MAN’S DICKEY, c. l820: (below right) FLANNEL DRAWERS, c. 1805, WORN BY THOMAS COUTTS

  Evidence of machine stitching indicates a date after 1850—in practice after 1860; but a great many continued to be sewn by hand after that date.

  The presence of a frilled jabot can be misleading as that type of shirt was worn by the upper servant and by old-fashioned professional gentlemen at least into the 1860’s.

  The stud-hole at the back of the neckband is rare before 1860.

  2. DRAWERS

  These appear to have been of two lengths, short when worn under breeches (figure 46) and ‘smallclothes’ (i.e. breeches with a short extension on to the calf); long when worn under pantaloons and trousers.13 In the Victoria and Albert Museum is a pair of man’s long drawers, of stockingette with feet (figure 46). The legs, separately woven, are attached to a three-inch waistband of homespun, and fastened together only for some four inches behind. At the back of the band are two internal strings for tightening. Its probable date is about 1795. In the same collection is the pair of short flannel drawers, which belonged to Thomas Coutts. They are cut in the eighteenth- century style with spreading legs and are tightened at the back by tapes. The knees are tied with sarcenet ribbon. The waistband is three inches deep and is fastened down the front with three buttons.

  3. BRACES