How strange is the origin of a fashion! The »abomination of wigs« was first adopted by a Duke of Anjou to conceal a personal defect! Charles the Seventh of France introduced long coats to hide his ill-made legs. The absurdly long-pointed shoes , often two feet in length , were invented by Henry Plantagenet to cover a very large excrescence he had upon one of his feet. When Francis I. was obliged to wear his hair short on acconnt of a wound in the head, the crop became the prevailing fashion of his Court. Madame de Montespan invented the robe battante, or hooped skirt, to conceal an accident in her history; which, however, occurred at such regular periods that people soon began to guess the cause when they perceived the effect. Not least curions of all is the origin of the long-fashionable shade of yellow called Isabella. When Ostend was besieged by the Spaniards, the Infanta Isabella of Spain, in a fit of injudicious patriotism, made a solemn vow not to change her linen till the town was taken. The besieged, either not hearing this vow or else too rebellions to regard it, held out till time, which sullies every thing, and possibly perspiration, if, indeed, Infantas of Spain do perspire, brought her Royal Highness’s linen to a color which needed a name. In a person of her rank it could not be dirty; and so it was called Isabella, became the fashionable loyal color, and was worn, so says the chronicler, »with honor by all, and with convenience by many« , making loyalty, so to speak, dirt cheap. (…)

So Louis the Eleventh of France had the temerity to crop his hair and shave his beard at a time when Fashion dictated ambrosial locks and flowing beard. What was the consequence? His Queen, Eleanor of Acquitaine, properly disgusted at such contempt of appearances, rested not till she procured a divorce, and married the Count of Anjou, afterward King of England. Is it too much to suppose that the interminable wars which followed upon this alliance were brought about, primarily, by the injudicious conduct of King Louis?

Who will say, looking upon these and like facts, that Fashion is to be contemned; or that her changes are unworthy the historian’s note or the philosopher’s attention? As for the popular mind , that is, with its usual sagacity keenly alive to any thing relating to so important a subject as dress, as is at once proven by the common remark, in every body’s month, of knowing a man by the style of his coat, or, as Captain Cuttle would put it, »by the cut of his jib.«

First among fashionable follies , on the score of absurdity , come the trunk hose, which were thought indispensable about the middle of Queen Elizabeth’s reign, and which were, in fact, a sort of masculine counter-puff to the verdingale, which then first began to swell the fair proportions of feminine loveliness, taking the place of the hoop of our day. The coat is what the dandy of our times most prides himself on. From the time of Henry VIII. of England, and for the three succeeding reigns, his breeches were the objects of a young man’s chief solicitude. Figure 1, representing James the First of England in hunting costume, is taken from a book devoted to various fashionable methods of killing time, published in the year 1614.

It will be seen that »the great, round, abominable breech,« as it was styled, then tapered down to the knee, and was slashed all over, and covered with embroidery and lace. Stays were sometimes worn beneath the long-waisted doublets of the gentlemen, to keep them straight and confine them at the waist. In our illustration the King is evidently incased in whalebone.

The fashion varied. We read of »hose pleated as though they had thirty pockets;« »two yards wide at the top;« and (date 1638) of »petticoat-breeches, tied above the knee, ribbons up to the pocket-holes, half the width of the breeches, then ribbons hanging all about the waistband, and skirt hanging out , which last fashion may be said to have altogether died out among our modern dandies. We read of breeches »almost capable of a bushel of wheat;« and of alterations which had to be made in the British Parliament House, to afford additional accommodations for the members’ seats. It is related of a fast man of the time, that, on rising to conclude a visit of ceremony, he had the misfortune to damage his nether integuments by a protruding nail in his chair, so that by the time he gained the door the escape of bran was so rapid as to cause a state of complete collapse.

A law was made »against such as did so stuff their breeches to make them stand out; whereupon,« says an ancient worthy, »when a certain prisoner (in these tymes) was accused for wearing such breeches contrary to law, he began to excuse himself of the offence, and endeavoured by little and little to discharge himself of that which he did weare within them; he drew out of his breeches a pair of sheets, two table-cloaths, ten napkins, four shirts, a brush, a glass, a combe, and night-caps, with other things of use, saying, ‘Your worships may understand that because I have no safer a store-house, these pockets do serve me for a roome to lay my goods in; and though it be a straight prison, yet it is a store-house big enough for them, for I have many things more yet of value within them.’ And so his discharge was accepted and well laughed at; and they commanded him that he should not alter the furniture of his store-house.«

Figure 2 is an excellent representation of a dandy of 1646, from a very rare broadside printed in that year. From the description of his garments we learn that he wears a tall hat with a bunch of ribbon on one side and a feather on the other, his face spotted with patches, two love-locks, one on each side of his head, which hang down upon his bosom, and are tied at the ends with silk ribbons in hows. A mustache encompasses his mouth. His hand or collar, edged with lace, is tied with hand-strings and secured by a ring. A tight vest is left partly open, and between it and his breeches his shirt sticks out. The cloak was in those days carried upon the arm. His breeches were ornamented with »many dozens of points at the knees, and above these, on either side, were two great bunches of ribbon, of several colors.’ His legs were incased in »boot-bose tops, tied above the middle of the calf, as long as a pair of shirt-sleeves, and double at the ends, like a ruff-band. The tops of the boots were very large, fringed with lace, and turned down as low as his spurres, which gingled like the bells of a morrice-dancer as he walked.« In his right hand he carried a stick, which he »played with as he straddled along the street singing.«

With such boots »straddling« was an ungraceful necessity. A buck of those days, who was probably not well up to the straddling dodge, complains that »one of the rowels of my silver spurs catched hold of the ruffle of my boot, which being Spanish leather, and not subject to tear, overthrew me!«

The love-lock worn by our beau caused an immense sensation among quiet, staid people. Mr. Prynne wrote against it a quarto volume, called “The Unloveliness of Love-locks,” in which he quotes a nobleman who, having been scared from this vanity by a violent sickness, »did declare the love-lock to be but a cord of vanity by which he had given the devil hold fast to lead him at his pleasure; who would never resign his prey as long as he nourished this unlovely bush.«

Patches, mentioned above as one of the decorations of our beau, were introduced about the middle of the seventeenth century. The fashion is said to have come from Arabia. Among Eastern nations a black mole is considered a “beauty spot,« a fit theme for poetic raptures. Hence those to whom Nature had denied this boon endeavored to imitate it by means of black silk and paste. In England, however, the taste was arbitrary, and the excess to which it was carried during the reign of Queen Anne was as barbarous as comical. Pepys makes frequent mention of the mode in his “Diary,” as: »My wife seemed very pretty today, it being the first time I had given her leave [!] to wear a black patch.« And again: »May 5 , To the Duke of York’s Play-house: one thing of familiarity I observed in my Lady Castlemaine; she called to one of her women for a little patch off her face, and put it into her mouth and wetted it, and so clapped it upon her own, by the side of her mouth.« (…)

Ruffs were the leading enormity in the dress of this period. Elizabeth’s were the most extravagant. But her courtiers all wore them. The Queen imported a starclser, »the substance called starche« being just then brought into use. Stubbs, the chief railer against the vanities of those days, says: »There is a certain liquid matter which they call starche, wherein the devil bath learned them to wash and dive their ruffs, which, being dry, will then stand stiff and inflexible about their necks.« We read, too, of wire supports to make the ruffs stand out; of »three or four small ruffs placed underthe master-devil ruff,« »which was often loaded and adorned with gold and silver and needlework.« Thus arranged these monstrous appendages expanded like wings as high as the head, or fell over the shoulders like flags, as shown in our sketches of courtiers of that period.

Several important toilet luxuries and conveniences were introduced in the time of Queen Bess. Sir Thomas Gresham first began to manufacture pins and ribbons during this reign. Knitted worsted stockings, too, were first made in England about the year 1565, by a London apprentice named William Ryder, who, having seen some that came from Italy, imitated a pair exactly, and presented them to the Earl of Pembroke. Also, we find it written in Stowe’s “Chronicle” that, »in the 2d yeere of Queen Elizabeth, her silk-woman, Mistress Montagu, presented her Majesty for a New-Yeere’s gift a pair of black silk knit stockings,« which she had made herself. So well did these please the Queen that she declared, according to Stowe, »Henceforth will I wear no more cloth hose« , that is to say, stockings of cloth sewed into shape. (…)

Figure 17 is from a portrait of Sir William Russell, one of Queen Elizabeth’s most distinguished courtiers, and will give some idea of the style of dress among the gentlemen of the later part of her reign. In his immense ruff, his »pease-cod-bellied doublet« of thickly quilted black silk, slashed sleeves, showing a rich lace under-garment, Venetian hose, and stockings of finest yarn, the dandy of those days seems to have been an exceedingly stiff and ungainly figure. In Lord Howard of Effingham (Figure 16), another courtier of Elizabeth’s, we see an example of the trunk hose and the sleeveless doubtlet, which were for a time the mode.

A poet of the day speaks of

»A fair black coat withouten sleeve,
And buttoned the shoulder round about;
Of xxxs a yard, as I beleeve,
And layd upon with parchment lace withoute.«

Sleeves were, while in the mode, a very recherché article of dress. They were made separate from the garment, and were often of great splendor. Among Elizabeth’s wardrobe were »a pair of sleeves of sypers (Cyprus work), wrought with silver and black silk;« »a pair of sleeves of gold pulled out with lawn;« »a pair of sleeves of gold and silver knytt, cawle fashion;« and many more, each in a different style. Her father, Henry VIII., was also remarkable for his splendid sleeves. The portrait of the Earl of Surrey (Figure 18) will give the fair reader some idea of the ridiculous appearance of these sleeves upon gentlemen. This gallant is dressed in a suit of scarlet throughout, and must have presented a most surprisingly gorgeous spectacle as he walked out, rapier in hand, looking at least twice as broad as he was long.

Garters, also, were a most fashionable male ornament. They were worn externally below the knee, and became so expensive and yet so common a luxury that we read of men of mean rank wearing garters and shoe-roses of more than five pounds in value. They were made of gold and silver, satin and velvet, often deeply fringed with gold. Taylor, the water-poet, satirizes those who

»Wear a farm in shoe-strings edged with geld,
And spangled garters worth a copyhold.« (…)

The reign of the peruke in Europe, as an article of fashion, began at the commencement of the seventeenth century. They were soon the rage, their ugliness, and the protests of fair-tressed damsels and love-locked young beaux to the contrary, notwithstanding. The barbers, of course, hailed the innovation with delight; and it is related of one zealous perruquier that he hired his sign-painter to depict, with due pathos and expression of attitude and face, Absalom hanging by his hair in the tree, and David weeping beneath, while out of his mouth proceeded the legend ,

»Oh, Absalom! eh, Absalom!
Oh, Absalom, my sun!
If thou hadst worn a periwig
Thou hadst not been undone!«

During the reign of Queen Elizabeth it became the fashion for the gallants to comb their wigs in public, as a means of busying their hands.

»Clew we rejoiced to see ‘em in our pit!
What difference methought there was
Betwixt a country gallant and a wit:
When yott did order periwig soith comb,
They only used four fingers and a thumb.«

The combs thus publicly displayed were of very large size, of ivory or tortoise, shell, curiously chased and ornamented, and were carried in the pockets as constantly as the snuff-box. On the Mall, and in the boxes, the dandies walked and combed their perukes.

There is a picture yet in existence of John, Duke of Marlborough, at his levee, in which his Grace appears dressed in a scarlet suit, with large white satin cuffs, and a very long white peruke, which he combs; while his valet stands behind him, adjusting the curls after the comb has passed through them.

Miason, who traveled in England in 1698, says of the gentlemen: »Their perruques and their habits were charged with powder, like millers, and their faces daubed with snuff.« The muff, now so exclusively the property of the ladies, was then an indispensable article to the gentlemen. Tom Brown gives, in his “Letters from the Dead to the Living,” the following description of the beaux of the early part of the eighteenth century: »We met three flaming beaux of the first magnitude. One made a most magnificent figure: his periwig was large enough to have loaded a camel, and he bestowed upon it at least a bushel of powder I warrant you. His sword-knot dangled upon the ground, and his steinkirk, that was most agreeably colored with snuff from top to bottom, reached down to his waist; he carry’d his hat under his left arm, walk’d with both hands in the waistbands of his breeches, and his cane, that hung negligently down in a string from his right arm, trailed most harmoniously against the pebbles, while the master of it, tripping it nicely upon his toes, was humming to himself.«

The costliness of wigs (£2O being a very common price) created a curious branch of robbery , a gang of London thieves devoting themselves to the stealing of perukes from the heads of their owners, and making the streets unsafe for the big-wigs after nightfall. The most ingenious mode of day robbery was for the thief to carry on his head, concealed in a basket, a smart lad, who, in passing through the crowd, would dexterously snatch from the head of its wearer and conceal the most attractive looking wig in the company. Also it was dangerous for any child, with a beautiful bead of hair, to wander abroad, certain women being always upon the alert to entice such into out-of-the-way places and there rob them of their locks. Pepys, who was an amateur in wigs, wonders, naively, »what will be the fashion after the plague is done, as to periwigs, for nobody will dare to buy any haire for feare of the infection, that it had been cut off the heads of the people dead with the plague.« But the fashion outlived even this blow, and an old writer pointedly says, that »Forty or fourscore pounds a year for periwigs, and ten to a poor chaplain to say grace to him that adores hair, is sufficient demonstration of the weakness of the brains they keep warm.« (…)

The strong scents which were universal toilet adjuncts from the time of Queen Bess down to the close of the last century, seem to have been necessities rather than luxuries. Cold water as a purifier was not much used in the cumbrous toilets of those days. To ladies who painted in red and white, as they did in the last century, an imprudent washing of the face would have been almost certain death. Lady Fortrose indeed killed herself by such a rashness, and several similar deaths are on record. A writer in the Gentleman’s Magazine for 1741 confesses that »from my love of appearing clean, and conversing with the ladies, I am what people call a Beau.« At Bath, the focus of every thin refined and fashionable during the early part of the last century, they never washed the uncarpeted floors of the apartments; but they were occasionally smeared over with a mixture of soot and small beer, which hid, or at any rate clouded, all unsightly accumulations.

Lest our fair readers think we give undue prominence to the fashionable absurdities of their sex, we must cite here one more extravagance in male attire, which seems to eclipse almost any thing to be laid to the fairer portion of creation. The Prince of Wales, who was afterward George IV., and whose wardrobe sold at auction, after his death, for the trifling sum of 45,000 (it was estimated to have cost 500,000), was the first to countenance buck-skin breeches as an indispensable fashionable morning garment. This article was made to fit so close to the person that, we read, the maker and a couple of assistants were usually required to aid at the ceremony of trying it on. In some instances it was actually suspended from the ceiling by machinery, and the wearer descended into it, endeavoring, partly by the influence of his natural gravity, and partly by the pullings and haulings of those around him, to get home into the shell prepared for him. The effect of three hours’ work of this kind (and the task lasted that time) may be imagined, especially if it was in the summer time. To walk in them was a torture, and to get out of them no less; but the dandy submitted to all with the devotion of a new-made saint, and the imperturbable firmness of a martyr.

Quelle: Harper’s new monthly magazine. Volume 18, Issue 105. February 1859.