#18th century clothing

[iridessence]

une reine sans le hameau | iridessence shot with Kelly Lenza

[lykanthropy]

I’m obsessed with this wonderful photoshoot from the new Dangerous Liaisons on Starz!

[cynicalneoprincessism]

This year I finally got into my dream hobby of wearing historical clothing, and wore it out for the first time You can see all the photos I took on my blog post~

[luminarai]

time for an extremely specific fashion history question: does anybody have any references to what winter wear for common people looked like in western europe in approx the mid-1700s??? anything from around 1720-1780 would be an amazing help, especially menswear. just practical warm clothing and work wear for the outdoors.

I have been Googling for hours and I’m getting almost nothing useful, mostly just upper class fashion, which is basically the opposite of what I’m looking for

[artemisyates]

Happy New Year! On 1 January 1818 the novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus was first published! So here's some more artwork of my own design for Victor Frankenstein to mark the occasion :)

[7-crows-in-a-trench-coat]

must i be “attractive” and “have a useful skill” and be “a contributing member of society”? is it not enough to wear period clothing and watch cartoons with queer representation?

[dresshistorynerd]

Hi, first off I love your blog so much! Sorry if you don’t accept these kinds of asks but I was wondering if you can help me with examples of dress history? I’m researching French Revolution/late 1700’s dress history for some characters of mine but most places I look only talk about what the rich/upper class people wore back then, do you have any examples of what more lower class people wore during French Revolution times? Thank you in advance <3

Aaw thank you so much! I'm happy to answer specific time period and research questions too, if I can!

It is pretty hard to find info and references of lower class clothing, I have also many times ran into that problem. I have gotten best results with search terms like "[time period, for example in this case 1780s or 1790s] working class clothing" or "[time period] working class" or "[time period] painting working class". From them I'll try to find paintings or illustrations and then check when the painting/illustration was made (I often utilize reverse image search). I'll search only for contemporary examples. With working class clothing you might sometimes find extent garments, but working clothing are often not the clothes that survive to this day, so paintings and illustrations are a better bet. When searching upper class clothing though extent garments are so helpful. They can be best found from online archives of costume institutes. Met Museum Costume Institute, Victoria and Albert Museum and Kyoto Costume Institute have the biggest online archives I know of. However I think the best place to start when hunting for references, especially working class, is Wikipedia. There's an article named History of Western Fashion, where there's listed a timeline of articles from every era. The articles themselves are not always super trustworthy or helpful, but they usually have really good set of references and almost always for working class too.

I'll ofc answer the actual question too. Working class people, men and women, wore basically the same types of clothing as upper classes, just more practical and less extravagant. This became even more true during 1780s, when the class tensions, that had been brewing for a long time and eventually led to the French Revolution, started mounting. Upper classes started to wear clothing very much modeled after country side and lower classes clothes, as their extravagant lifestyles represented by their even more extravagant clothes became subject of the people's ire. There was a massive shift in high fashion, but working class clothing didn't change much (till the empire waistline was popularized by mid 1790s). Working class people had always followed fashion too, but before the French Revolution the differences between upper and lower class fashions were bigger. As a reference, here's a upper class gown from early 1791, very different from the opulence of 1770s.

Working class women wore the undergarments (shift, stays, under-petticoat), a petticoat, usually an apron and a jacket/short gown, a bedgown or a gown. They usually wore linen caps to keep the hair clean and tidy and kerchiefs were popular too especially with day wear to cover the neckline.

This is from somewhere between 1770-1797. Quilted petticoats were popular among lower classes (though not exclusively lower classes). She seems to be wearing a bedgown. It's a simple t-shaped garment and falls somewhere above knee. Upper class women wore it at the comfort of their homes.

This is from 1782. These working ladies are very fashionable. Their hair is very large as was the fashion at the time, though they are still wearing caps. The one standing is also wearing a robe a la polonaise, which was very fashionable garment at the time.

In this illustration from 1781, you can see the fashionable silhouette of the time, where the rigid cone shaped bodice was replaces by a pigeon chest. The soft and mostly not boned Regency stays come later, but the transitional stays had often very deep neckline, even ending under the bust, like it seems here, to provide the roundness to the silhouette. Later in the 1790s the sleeveless dresses enter into the upper class fashion too as they emulate these very lower class country folk styles.

In this circa 1790 example the lady also has the fashionable pigeon chest silhouette. She seems to be wearing a bedgown.

This also transitions us well into the men's wear as there's also an example of a lower class man's clothing. All classes of men wore breeches or trousers, shirts, waistcoats and coats. Upper class men would wear breeches and long coats, and the fashionable style was for it to be open in the front and long in the back, like a transitional stage to tailcoat, like in this example from mid 1780s.

Working class men wore also breeches, but trousers too, especially sailors. French revolutionaries rejected breeches and wore only trousers, as breeches were associated with the upper class. Working class revolutionaries even called themselves sans-cullotes (literally "without breeches"). They wore sometimes a short jacket or smock-frock (especially Brittish rural workers) instead of a coat.

Here's a painting of a French revolutionary from early 1790s wearing trousers and coat.

Here's example of two country men from 1792, one on the left wearing a smock-frock and the other wearing a short jacket.

Another sans-culotte wearing trousers with boots and a short jacket with a sash from 1793.

Here's one more example. The props the museum has added to the set up, will clue you in that these are meant to represent clothes of working class French revolutionaries. The men's outfit is dated vaguely in the late 1700s, wearing trousers and a sash, though very scandalously nothing over his shirt, and the women's outfit is dated around 1790 and has a quilted petticoat and a jacket.

In 18th century and especially after the revolution, the differences in clothing between different western fashion mostly disappeared, but there was still some differences among working class of different countries, especially on the countryside, but these are the basics.

[brutides]

i’d sell my soul for a coat like this

[ms-march]

Whoever decided hobbies should be monetized, I hate you.

[finlaure13]

The Making of the 18th Century Linen Shirt.

Made from 100% linen suiting, I also used two brass metal buttons for the cuffs. The cravat is made from 100% dupioni silk. This finishes the upper part of my 18th century gentleman’s dress, along with the previously posted waistcoat and frock coat.

[bunad]

18th c. Embroidered Skirt

Skirt with with large multi colour wool embroideries. Made 1751, somewhere in Norway.

First two photos by Haakon Michael Harriss - Norsk Folkemuseum

Detail shots by Anne-Lise Reinsfelt - Norsk Folkemuseum

[iridessence]

*intro to Age of Consent plays* | XX

[queergarments]

Towards a better understanding of 18th century shirts

In 2020 I hand sewed a linen shirt that had more to do with being inspired to hand sew something, anything, from having watched too many aesthetic Youtube-videos than any actual 18th construction methods.

The shirt came out fine enough. But the bargain bin linen was so shitty that the fabric has pilled (!) and collar started tearing off of the neck hole after around ten wears.

However, two important personal discoveries were made:

I like to wear linen next to the skin both winter and summer.

I like wearing this kind of voluminous shirt despite not otherwise liking billowy shirts.

When I try this again I'm going to try my hand at the following replica.

This shirt was made according to a drawn model of a Danish shirt from 1735. It has neck and arm gussets. The neck opening and the ends of the sleeves are gathered into the collar and armbands, respectively.

The detail I especially like is that the neck opening is bound in button hole stitches.

[18th-century-mental-health]

I am a simple person : I saw it, I bought it.

[alexsrandomramblings]

Current Status: Babbling about the wonders of pocket panniers and all the stuff you can fit in them.

[artemisyates]

My design for Captain Robert Walton from the novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley ♥

I always imagined him a very dashing and fashionable young man :)