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Clothing
: Introduction
: Looking at Eighteenth-Century Clothing
by Linda Baumgarten
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| Mrs. Gavin Lawson (Susannah Rose) by John Hesselius. Oil on Canvas. Virginia,
dated 1770. Mrs. Lawson wife of a planter and merchant of Stafford County,
Virginia, wears a satin gown with stomacher front, fine lace, and pearls. 1954-262. |
The concepts of comfort
and modesty have always been relative and subject to the influence of fashion
and the needs of the occasion. Like us, eighteenth-century people needed clothing
for warmth and comfort, but they quickly abandoned those needs if fashion or
the occasion dictated. During much of the eighteenth century, women's skirts
were long and the sleeves covered the elbows; yet a woman
would readily push up her sleeves and hike up her petticoats while doing laundry
or working in the dairy, and, when fashion dictated it, women would shorten
their skirts to the ankles, as many did in the 1780s.
When we look at ladies'
corsets –"stays" –from the period, we cannot imagine how a woman could
subject herself to such a garment. Yet the wearing of stays was as much linked
to concepts of modesty and support as it was to figure shape; without her stays
for most public occasions, a woman was considered not quite properly dressed
at best and a "loose woman" at worst.
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| Sack Back Gown and
Matching Petticoats. Brocaded silk taffeta, linen bodice and sleeve linings,
made in England or Virginia by Elizabeth Dandridge Aylett Henley.G1975-340. |
Someone who had worn stays
from girlhood might scarcely have questioned their comfort or lack of it. (And
who is to say that stays were any more uncomfortable than pointed-toe, high-heeled
twentieth-century shoes?)
Climate also had a significant
effect on clothing. In the sultry climate of Virginia many, even the upper classes,
chose washable linen or cotton clothing for informal wear. A
traveler in the early 1730s described the summer clothing of Virginians: "In
Summertime even the gentry goe Many in White Holland [linen] Wast Coat and drawers
and a thin Cap on their heads and Thread stockings [knitted linen]. The Ladyes
Strait laced in thin Silk or Linnen. In Winter [they dress] mostly as in England
and affect London Dress and wayes."
During the hot summer months,
men often wore unlined coats and thin waistcoats of cotton or linen fabrics.
Advising his brother about what to wear when he attended the College of William
and Mary, Stephen Hawtrey wrote, "Your Cloathing in summer must be as thin and
light as possible for the heat is beyond your conception . . .your Cloth suit
unlined may do for the Month of May, but after that time you must wear the thinnest
Stuffs that can be made without lining[;] some people . . . wear brown holland
[linen] Coats with lining –some Crape –You must carry with you a Stock
of Linnen Waistcoats made very large and loose, that they may'nt stick to your
hide when you perspire."
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Historic Triangle