Jennifer Kloester Read online

  A reticule was an indispensable item in a lady’s wardrobe

  and was carried everywhere.

  Shoes were also known as slippers and were quite dainty and often unsuited to the demands of daily life or the exigencies of walking and dancing. Either flat or low-heeled, they had a slim leather sole and were fastened with ribbons or laces tied around the ankle or instep. For everyday use shoes tended to be made of kid leather or jean although, despite their impracticality for outdoor wear, velvet, silk and satin were also popular and even recommended in the ladies’ magazines, especially for evening wear. Half-boots, worn for walking or riding, were low-heeled, short in length (they reached to the bottom of the calf), and were either buttoned at the side or laced at the side, front or back. They were made of either kid leather, jean, or nankeen, and occasionally of silk. Frederica wore half-boots of orange jean when visiting Lady Buxted and, on her long journey to London, Arabella found that her half-boots of crimson jean did not keep out the cold.

  Accessories were an essential part of a well-dressed lady’s wardrobe and generally included a variety of bags, gloves, fans and muffs. A reticule was the Regency woman’s handbag and also known as a ‘ridicule’. It usually had a draw-string opening and came in a range of shapes, styles and fabrics. The style of dress during the period precluded pockets, making the reticule an indispensable accessory for any lady wishing to carry her money, handkerchief, scent or smelling-salts. Women often fashioned their own reticules and decorated them with embroidery or beads. In The Unknown Ajax, Anthea Darracott, following the advice in The Mirror of Fashion, attempted to make a reticule in the shape of an Etruscan vase which her mother assured her would look very elegant once it was painted. An alternative to the reticule for carrying money, the stocking purse was a long narrow tube with a single opening at the centre enabling the user to drop coins into each end. Usually knitted, crocheted or netted, they were closed by means of two metal rings encircling the central opening which could be pushed in either direction to secure the contents. Lady Bridlington kindly bought one for Arabella while shopping in London but ladies often made stocking purses to their own design and ornamented the ends.

  No well-dressed woman went out of doors without her gloves which, although useful for keeping the hands warm, were considered an elegant and essential accessory for both day and evening wear. During the Regency they were mostly worn short during the day and elbow length in the evenings. Short kid leather or York tan gloves were mostly worn for riding, driving or other outdoor activities; coloured silk gloves were reserved for more genteel pastimes; long white kid gloves were exclusively for evening wear and knitted woollen gloves or mittens, though utilitarian and less attractive, were useful in the winter months. In Lady of Quality, Lucilla Carleton was thrilled when Ancilla granted her permission to buy her first pair of evening gloves to wear to a rout party.

  A stocking purse was particularly convenient for carrying money,

  and Patience Chartley in The Nonesuch held tightly to hers

  while on a shopping trip to Leeds.

  Muffs, large hollow cylinders usually made of fur, swansdown, fabric or sealskin, were used by both men and women, although favoured by the latter, to keep their hands warm. They varied greatly in size, with the heavier winter muffs as much as two feet in length, and were often made of sable or ermine while summer muffs were lighter and made of feathers or swansdown. An elegant accessory, muffs were often designed to match a woman’s tippet or the edging on her pelisse and could be used to conceal or carry small objects such as billets-doux or money. Sophy carried a large swansdown muff when she visited the moneylender, Mr Goldhanger, in The Grand Sophy and found it extremely useful for carrying her money, several important papers and her pistol.

  Introduced to fashionable English society from China, the early parasols were made of silk and often shaped like a pagoda. Primarily used to shade a lady’s complexion from the sun, they were also considered an elegant accessory and were often chosen to match a particular gown or pelisse. Bamboo, cane and the new telescopic steel sticks were used for the frame, and hinged parasols, which could be used like a fan, were popular for a time. Unlike their male counterparts who carried their furled umbrellas held firmly in the middle, ladies carried their furled parasols by the handle.

  And finally, every lady of fashion carried a fan in her reticule or slipped over her wrist at a ball or evening party. In previous decades the fan had been an instrument of dalliance and ladies were well-versed in the language of the furled or open fan, twirling, tapping, opening or closing it to convey messages of love and rejection. By the time of the Regency, however, the fan was used less for flirtation and more as an elegant accessory which could also provide some relief from the often oppressive heat of a crowded ballroom. Folding fans with multiple elaborately decorated sticks, known as brisé fans, were among the most popular and were often articles of great beauty. Those created by the celebrated eighteenth-century artist Angela Kauffmann, or which used the French vernis technique developed by the four Martin brothers, were highly prized. Vernis Martin fans were so-called because of their varnished (vernis in French) decoration; they were hand-painted, often with oriental scenes. In A Civil Contract Jonathan Chawleigh had already bestowed a Vernis Martin fan on his daughter Jenny when her husband Adam gave her an elegant painted fan with mother-of-pearl sticks. Fans could be made with sticks of delicately carved ivory, tortoiseshell, mother-of-pearl, bone, metal or lacquered wood, with leaves of silk, crape, lace or chicken skin. These delicate works of art had become smaller by the early nineteenth century and during the Regency were usually between six and ten inches long with a span of approximately 120 degrees. French fans and those made by oriental craftsmen were among the most popular fans for ladies during the period.

  A fan was an elegant accessory which every lady carried with her to a ball or party.

  HAIRSTYLES

  The penchant for the Grecian style which influenced fashion in the early nineteenth century also extended to men’s and women’s hairstyles. For much of the Regency, men wore their hair short with just enough length to have it curled or waved. Partings were rare and many men wore their hair as it fell naturally while followers of fashion frequently affected one of the well-known styles of the day. Sir Richard Wyndham in The Corinthian favoured the Windswept which was one of the most difficult hairstyles to realise: the aim being to look as natural as possible without any indication of the time required to achieve it. The dishevelled style known as the Brutus was first made popular by Beau Brummell and was fashionable until the later years of the Regency although it took both time and patience to create the desired tousled look.

  Some men still adopted a version of an earlier Grecian style called the Titus in imitation of the Roman emperor; it had short side-whiskers and was carefully cut and styled to sit up at the front and to follow the contours of the face at the temples. Other popular pre-Regency styles were the Coup au Vent, which was short at the back and worn long over the eyes at the front, and the Chérubin, which was all over short curls. Although a few members of the older generation still wore wigs, the 1795 tax on hair powder had seen them worn less and less and by the time of the Regency they were mostly worn only at Court. By 1813 many men had begun to cultivate side-whiskers and by 1818 both short and long side-whiskers had become fashionable.

  During the Regency the fashionable ‘natural’ look of men’s hairstyles often took a great deal of time and patience to achieve.

  In A Civil Contract Lydia Deveril persuaded her sister-in-law Jenny to adopt an elegant new hairstyle and exchange her ringlets for smooth braids.

  Women, too, styled their hair along Grecian lines with soft curls around the face and the rest of the hair pulled back into a chignon or braided. The antique Roman style also became popular after 1810 with the hair lifted to the back of the head and styled into two soft knots or ringlets which hung lightly to the neck. A plain or jewelled bandeau was often worn around the hair in imitat