Galerie des Modes, 14e Cahier, 4e Figure
Robe de Cour on a medium hoop, pulled up once. It is for winter, of blue satin trimmed with bands of sable tails and pelts, attached with bows of white ribbon over the whole front of the petticoat.
Pride and Prejudice 1995: The Little Things
I did threaten to write about the Ehle/Firth Pride and Prejudice , and since I'm in a writing mood without a topic I decided to make good. Regency adaptations tend to go for an overall accurate look, interpreting age and income within the confines of realistic silhouettes and colors, and so they avoid the scrutiny and reputation that a more obviously artistic and unrealistic production garners. But just as this version of P&P is not entirely faithful in every respect (e.g. the added Darcy-perspective scenes, the actors nearly all being significantly older than their characters - perhaps the most egregious example being Julia Sawalha in her late twenties playing teenage Lydia), Dinah Hill's costuming is not entirely accurate - mainly in ways that make the period more appealing to modern tastes. The exact date when the story is set is never given; generally, the movie's taken to be set in 1813, when the book was published. I'm not going to go into the full story of
The 18th century has really outdone itself this time!
ReplyDeleteWhen I think of the time that must have gone into all that lace ...
DeleteI always wonder with these dresses. There are so few extent examples, and they hardly seem like the sort of thing that would be worn to rags. How many of them were actually made? How closely did the fashion drawings match the reality?
ReplyDeleteThe blue is delicious, but those sable tails are a bit creepy.
Well, since it's official court dress, I'd think that every woman at court would have to have at least one. How many would have lace swags all over them? Probably few, it might have been more popular to use self-fabric trim that way (at least, I've seen extant examples of non-court gowns trimmed in a similar way with the dress fabric). But it could also be that the lace trim would just get taken off and replaced, and we only see the plainer base gowns in collections.
DeleteThere's so much fabric in those petticoats and skirts that I expect these might have been remade very frequently. You'd have to almost completely redo the bodice, since those were cut in an older style, but I think there's more than enough petticoat for that.