by Ian Mortimer
a cuff neglectful, and thereby ribbands to flow confusedly,
a winning wave, deserving note,
in the tempestuous petticoat,
a careless shoe-string, in whose tie
I see a wild civility,
do more bewitch me, than when art is too precise in every part.
Thus the only people who are likely to complain about your casualness are those women whose smartness cannot match it.
When it comes to stockings, bright colours are all the rage, with knitted wool or silk being the preferred materials. Women’s shoes are most frequently made of leather and pointed, with a high heel; other materials include velvet and embroidered cloth for some slippers and ‘mules’ (slippers with heels), and silk and satin for the linings. Gold or coloured braid is used for decorating fine leather and suede shoes, which may also be perfumed. If you really want to dazzle, try a pair of slip-on red velvet pantofles with an inch-wide square toe, a low heel and a mass of exquisite patterns in silver-gilt thread embroidery on the upper part.40
Red velvet shoes aren’t that well suited for walking through the mud and muck of a city’s streets. In such cases you may well choose to use a patten, an iron frame that raises your feet to keep them from the trampled dung.41 Alternatively you might take off your shoes altogether and wear something more practical. Ladies don’t wear jack boots (for which be grateful); instead, soft-leather boots called buskins are made for outdoor wear or riding long-distance. Women’s outdoor coats are similar to men’s; alternatively you might choose to wear a tippet (a waist-length cape) from the 1680s. Note, however, that some tippets are just for show: a velvet or fur-trimmed one is no good in a storm. Nor is a palatine: a tippet made of sable that simply covers the shoulders and has two flaps hanging down over the breast. More practical by far is the mantle – a voluminous cloak that reaches to the feet, tied in front of the throat. Celia Fiennes goes for a walk one day on a windswept moor and gets caught in a hailstorm but does not mind particularly because she is wearing her ‘dust coat’.42
Until the 1670s women regularly wear hats – wide-brimmed sugar-loaf hats, not dissimilar to men’s, or straw hats. Curiously, hats then quickly fall out of fashion. Women still use a variety of types of headwear, and the coif remains especially common. This is a close-fitting plain linen head covering that comes down the sides, to be fastened beneath the chin. Often it is worn with a crosscloth or forehead cloth: a triangular piece of material with one point to the back of the head beneath the coif, and the sides tied under the chin. Alternatives include a plain linen skullcap or a linen scarf tied around the head.
The clothes of Sarah Kitchen, single woman, of Christchurch parish, Bristol, 167243
One cotton mantle, one worsted mantle, one white serge petticoat, one Indian fustian petticoat, one red cloth petticoat with gold and silver lace, one plain tabby petticoat, one sad [dull-coloured] serge petticoat and gown of the same, one wrought fustian waistcoat, one black silk Mantua gown, one black sarcenet petticoat, one serge cloak, one silk cloak, one morning coat, one riding suit, one holland tuff petticoat £10
Eleven pairs of sleeves, eight skull caps, five calico hoods, eight stock neckcloths, sixteen dressings, eleven forehead cloths, six bibs, six handkerchiefs, six pocket handkerchiefs, nine aprons, eleven coifs, one tuff waistcoat, four other waistcoats, five shifts, ten laced stock neckcloths £3 3s 3d
HAIR
Specialist hairdressers are just starting to establish themselves in London in this period – and well they might, for women start to experiment with their hair as never before.44 In 1660 Pepys sees the new queen, Catherine of Braganza, with hers all frizzed up, and he is not sure he likes it.45 Later in this decade women have their hair drawn back from the face and arranged in an oval ‘bun’ at the back of the head, decorating it with ribbons or artificial flowers. It also becomes fashionable to insert locks into the hair, which are plaited and curled and secured by pins. Further change sweeps across fashionable London when the glamorous Madame Kéroualle arrives to seduce the king in 1670. Ladies ask for their hairdressers to give them a hurluberlu – a mass of close curls all over the head, with stray ringlets at the back. In 1674 the ‘bullhead coiffure’ comes in from France: a forehead fringe of thick curls. In 1680 curls with a centre parting are all the rage. And then in 1690 the ‘fontage’ arrives.
Women are far too sensible to embrace the male fashion of cutting off their hair to replace it with a wig. Why should they? The only time they wear a periwig is when out riding, and then they put it over their own hair. However, the fontage is proof that Restoration ladies are just as vain and fashion-addicted as their menfolk. To build a fontage on your head, first you need a ‘commode’ or wire frame, which is attached to a close-fitting linen cap at the back of the head. The commode is covered with lace and linen and a shape built up that leans slightly forward, resembling a half-closed fan. Then the woman’s hair is built up at the front to form a ‘palisade’, so that the hair rises directly in curls up the commode and is crowned with a mass of lace at the top, about 10 inches or a foot above the head, framed by ribbons on all sides. It looks dazzling, but I imagine women can’t do anything under such a construction except … well, look dazzling.46
MAKE-UP AND BEUATY
Rouge, white powder and perfumes should be on any self-respecting lady’s make-up table in this period. When so many other women are staring at you, fluttering their fans just below their eyes, you have little choice. But you might think twice about the full extent of beauty products employed at this time. Would you wash your face in puppy water? It’s not what you’re thinking it is. I also thought it was puppy’s urine when I heard that Samuel Pepys’s wife bought some at the suggestion of his aunt, who uses it for her ugly visage.47 It is worse than that. Basically it is oil of distilled dog. There are various recipes; this one is from Nicholas Culpeper’s Pharmacopoeia Londinensis:
Takes four pounds of sallet oil [olive oil], two puppy-dogs newly whelped, a pound of earthworms washed in white wine; boil the whelps till they fall in pieces then put in the worms; strain it after a while, then with three ounces of cypress, turpentine, and one ounce of spirits of wine, perfect the oil according to art.48
Alternatively you could try the recipe published in 1690 by John Evelyn’s daughter, Mary. This prefers the puppies to be roasted at nine days old and their skulls broken open after roasting, and snail shells to be used instead of earthworms. Who would have thought this, coming from such a sweet girl! She is most insistent on the addition of canary wine and a lemon, with the whole lot being distilled and dripped over a lump of sugar and a little gold leaf. But whichever recipe you use, you’ve then got to rub the oil all over your face.
Strangely, puppy water is not controversial, even if Samuel Pepys does not approve. Painting your face, however, is. For many people this is what prostitutes do, and actresses (who are normally presumed to be gentlemen’s mistresses). Certain women do it to enhance their beauty. Others feel shape is more important than colour and carry cork ‘plumpers’. Mary Evelyn describes these as ‘very thin round and light balls to plump out and fill up the cavities of the cheeks, much used by old court countesses’.49 If you hang around court long enough, sooner or later you will see some of them fall out. Another affectation that spreads far and wide is the practice of wearing little black patches on the face. This begins back in the 1650s, when women start to mark themselves with artificial moles or beauty spots. Pepys is unimpressed when his wife applies her first patches in 1660; his opinion is not changed in October 1662 when he sees a pretty girl in the Exchange with ‘her face full of black patches’.50 Young women are still wearing them when Monsieur Misson visits England in 1697. ‘The young, old, handsome, ugly, all are bepatched till they are bid-ridden,’ he declares. ‘I have often counted fifteen patches or more upon the swarthy wrinkled phiz of an old hag threescore and ten and upwards.’51
Finally, it is important that fashionable ladies are seen to have soft, white hands.
Willem Schellinks notes one method of making sure of this. One day in August 1660 he is out hunting in Kent with his host and a large party of men and women. Someone shoots a deer with a crossbow: immediately, all the ladies dismount and rush forward to wash their hands in its blood, which is supposed to keep them tender and white. Yuk, you might think. And yes, it’s not to everyone’s taste. So here’s an alternative recommended by Mary Evelyn: last thing before you go to bed at night, put on gloves made out of chicken skin.52
ACCESSORIES
Just as gentlemen carry their swords and their muffs when leaving the house, so women also pick up a few accessories. Ladies might carry a muff, as the gentlemen do. What’s more, they might actually use it to keep their hands warm, as opposed to simply hanging it on a ribbon for show. If they are very wealthy, ladies might also employ an umbrella to shield them from the heat, and wear kid gloves perfumed with jessemy butter. They might use short, wrist-length gloves fringed with lace or, from about 1670, close-fitting elbow-length ones of fine leather or silk. Mittens too are popular: long lace or silk ones, or shorter ones with a separate thumb. Obviously handkerchiefs go without saying but remember that when you read about pocket handkerchiefs, the pocket itself is not necessarily part of a garment. Linen pockets are themselves accessories: pouches sewn separately and held inside the clothes on linen ties. Aprons are self-explanatory, as are fans (often elaborately painted) and jewellery, especially pearls. Diamond pendant earrings are popular, as are gold rings carrying turquoises, sapphires, rubies and emeralds. Perhaps the most unexpected item you will have to deal with is a mask. For the last hundred years or so, women have been finding occasion to cover their faces when out in public. This might be when travelling from town to town – to keep their complexion free from dust – or it might be in the theatre or in a London park – to keep their reputation free from gossip. There are two sorts: the full mask or vizard, which is an oval shape that covers the whole face; and the half-mask or ‘loo-mask’, which only covers the eyes. Either will conceal your identity if you wear it with a hooded cloak. Bear in mind, though, that at the end of the period masks are seen as symbols of prostitution.
THE WORKING TRADES, COUNTRY PEOPLE AND THE POOR
The vast majority of women can only imitate the fashions of the day. The very idea that a butcher’s wife might have a silk petticoat or carry a sable muff is ludicrous. Whereas an elegant London woman might wear a fine mantle and buskins as she rides along the street, her poor West Country cousins will be soldiering through the weather on foot in a ‘rocket’ (cloak) and wooden clogs. You get a picture of what clothes most tradesmen’s wives have in the chest when you consider the possessions they leave behind. In Essex, in 1672, Widow Poole dies leaving £40 of cash; her possessions besides amount to a further £8 8s. Of this sum, four petticoats and one waistcoat amount to £1; a hat is another 3s; a black scarf and a green apron add another 5s; and some old petticoats and bodices, and another hat and a waistcoat, add 5s to that total. It looks as if her best skirts have already been given away, but the clothes remaining add up to just 33s – a fraction of her modest wealth.53 Although you might presume that women are very conscious of their appearance and keen to invest in beautiful clothes, the reality is that expensive garments are beyond the reach of those whose husbands work at a trade or farm a few acres. Then, when they grow old and are widowed, appearance takes a marked second place to the simple struggle to stay alive. Sarah Kitchen, the prosperous single woman whose clothing is listed above, has an estate of £462 – a substantial sum indeed – but £423 of this is in the form of leases, money and plate. It is security. Many widows follow the same model of life: it is better to be financially secure than dressed in fine clothes.
SCOTTISH CLOTHING
Like their menfolk, Scotswomen wear the plaid (or the ‘arisaid’, as the female version is also called). As soon as Celia Fiennes crosses the border in 1698 she comes across women thus attired. She describes them: ‘though with naked legs are yet wrapped up in plaids, a piece of woollen like a blanket or else riding hoods, and this when they are in their houses’.54 Another English commentator notes of Scotswomen that
the meaner [i.e. less well off] go barefoot and bareheaded, with two black elflocks on either side of their faces; some of them have scarce any clothes at all, save part of their bedclothes pinned about their shoulders, and their children have nothing else on them but a little blanket. Those women that can purchase plaids need not bestow much upon other clothes, these coversluts being sufficient. Those of the best sort are very well habited in their modish silks yet must wear a plaid over all for the credit of their country.55
Generally at this time every woman except the very poor will have a plaid to her name. Sophia Petticrew, the widow of an Edinburgh vintner at the end of the period, has two, both described as Glasgow plaids. Her other clothes are as follows:
A twilted [quilted] black killimankie petticoat
A striped and flowered killimankie petticoat
A fine black cloth petticoat
A blue and red serge petticoat
A black moskered [decayed] petticoat
A light-coloured silk and worsted gown with lemon-coloured Persian lining
A moskered gown lined with black serge
A black serge apron
A black killimankie apron
A blue and white apron
A black short ruffled silk apron
A pair of stays and a stomacher
An old dark-coloured rocolar [cloak?]
A pair of shoes
A night cap
21 coarse clothes, laced and plain
2 muslin pinners with lace
4 laced mutches
Two plain muslin hoods
A striped muslin hood
A suite of damask head cloths
Half a muslin napkin with lace
A cambric napkin56
As you can see, some of the wording is unusual. ‘Killimankie’ is calamanco, a glossy woollen cloth woven with a satin twill; ‘mutches’ are close-fitting day-caps made of linen or muslin; and ‘damask’ is a twilled linen fabric with patterns that show up from reflected light. Despite this, the actual garments would be recognisable to an Englishwoman of similar rank. Indeed, she might well admire them. Needless to say, Sophia Petticrew is not one of those poor women who sleeps in her plaid. In fact I expect she takes a dim view of those women who do.
Cleaning Clothes
If you don’t wash your fine clothes, they will not have the desired effect, regardless of the quality of the material. As for your linen, there is a reason why everyone wears undergarments of this fabric: it is to soak up the sweat and dirt from the body, so that smelly excretions can be removed when the linen is washed. From this you will see that cleanliness is as essential to fashion as expensive fabric and tailoring.
Not everything can be cleaned easily, however. Silk, lace, lawn, tiffanies (pieces of very fine gauze) and sarsenet are singled out as fabrics that you simply do not hand over to your laundry maid or a washerwoman, because she will ruin them. If you can afford such things, you will either wash and starch them yourself (if you are a woman) or hand them to your wife or her chambermaid to clean.57 Coats and items that are best cleaned by brushing go to the housemaid. Only wool and regular linen items go to laundry maids or, if you prefer, the town washerwomen. If the laundry is being done by your own staff, they will save everything up for the household’s ‘great wash’. The regularity of this varies from family to family, but John Houghton writes in 1695 that ‘I find upon enquiry that in good citizens’ houses they wash once a month, and they use, if they wash all the clothes at home, about as many pounds of soap as there be heads in the family’.58
So, what does the great wash involve? First there may be some preparation. If you have managed to spill drops of ink on your shirt, you will need to soak the affected area overnight in urine – so says Hannah Woolley in her book, The Compleat Servant-Maid (1677). When the ammonia has started to bre
ak down the stain, then the garment is ready for the great wash. Traditionally this happens very early in the morning – a 2 a.m. start in winter is not unusual.59 When a great household, such as that of a lord, undertakes a great wash, extra women are hired to help – at the rate of 1s 6d per day per woman, in the case of Lord Bedford’s household, reflecting just how hard the work is.60 In those areas where they burn wood to make potash, the clothes are layered into washing vats with the resulting lye and then beaten or trampled. In Scotland the women who do this hitch up their skirts to the tops of their thighs, exposing themselves far more than they would normally; therefore one of their number is usually stationed nearby to chase off any peeping Toms in the neighbourhood. Elsewhere people use soap – either black soap (½d per lb), grey soap (1d per lb) or castile (3d per lb), the most expensive. Black soap smells, being made out of train oil; it also stains linen, so don’t use it on cambric or holland cloth, but only on wool. When everything is clean it is laid out flat in the sun or hung on a clothes line to dry.
What about the dolly stick, you might ask? What about the wash-board? The mangle? The clothes horse? All of these things lie in the future – although bats for beating the dirt out of recalcitrant woollens are in use. The one striking innovation that comes in at this time is ironing. In the past, if you wanted to flatten your clothes, you either had to use smoothing stones or, if you could afford one, a screw press. But from about 1670 you come across people talking about irons and ‘smoothing irons’ – for flattening lace bands, for example. They aren’t cheap: about a shilling, if you buy them second-hand.61 When in the 1680s the well-to-do start to talk about having their ‘ironing’ done, the iron as we know it has definitely arrived.62