…of the English and French, however discuss that stays were worn or not worn in equal measure.  Young women and those with beautiful figures discarded undergarments, while those of “bountiful flesh” or older and gravity drawn shapes continued to wear some sort of understructure. (Portraits Featured and below: Many older …

…of world fashion, social order had been completely overturned during the French Revolution.  With it came a loosening of morals and deportment.  In France, the new, clingy, near-naked fashion silhouette was more popular than other places such as England. (Portrait:  Early regency fashion was nearly naked for all shapes and …

…printed cottons coming from India in England and France at the time because those countries wanted to support their own textile industries, cotton became wildly popular.  Cotton quickly replaced silk, wool, and linen.  By 1759 France and 1774 England had given up and removed the laws. (Extant 1815 cotton gown)

…as society was rapidly growing more urbanized, the demand for mass production demanded “proportionate” systems to speed up the trial and error of previous methods.  The fitted garment became the norm. (Caroline Murat, Napoleon Bonaparte’s little sister in 1808 had perfectly fitting garments)

…it was discovered the body was in proportion to head measurements.  W.H. Wampum, a German tailor was fascinated with this law of Anthropometrics, and began to work with the idea of drafting patterns to size rather than draping on the body. (The study of anthropometrics yields body proportion.  Below: Today, …

France, the fashion leader at the time, was at war, and an abrupt change came to all structured and elaborate garments.  It was at this time the scientific study of the human body had come to the garment making industry. (Portrait:  Women of the French Revolution in 1790’s are idealized …

…there were traveling weavers who introduced lovely striped fabrics that were actually an innovative way to use up leftover yarns from other weaves.  The French peasantry, wearing these, so charmed Queen Marie Antoinette that she introduced new fashions using them. (Marie Antoinette in the 1780’s inspired Regency fashion, 1816)

…the era was known as “neo-classical revival”, and it had an overwhelming effect on fashion.  Women wanted the light and diaphanous fashions like Greek statues.  This was the period written about by authors such as Jane Austen. (Featured: Jane Austen’s book.  Below: “Pride and Prejudice” movie, the sisters attend a …

The Regency Era Women’s fashions at the turn of the 19th century display the results of the Napoleonic Wars, inc which fashion absorbed influences from the Middle East.  Exotic fabrics, turbans, transparent cotton muslins, feathers. exotic jewelry, and a taste for Classical Greece followed. (Feature: 1803 French fashion extant and …

…kind to older and larger women. (Cartoon from 1800 British Periodical)