Rococo fashion was all the rage in the 1740s along with the robe à la française worn as the primary gown for both formal and informal occasions. At the same time, men’s fashion remained just as full as the 1730s, and French and English fashion represented two ends of a spectrum.

The middle decades of the eighteenth century constitute what dress historian Aileen Ribeiro characterizes as “the triumph of the rococo” (Ribeiro 121). The robe à la française with its characteristic back pleats falling from shoulders to hem was worn throughout Europe, as both formal and informal dress. The most notable change in the gown from its introduction around 1720 was the tighter-fitting bodice that was cut separately from the skirt, oval sleeve ruffles that replaced the wing cuffs of the previous decades, and the addition of applied decoration, often in the form self-fabric, silk flowers, and delicate passementerie that was stitched down the center-front opening and across the front of the petticoat. Hoops, or paniers, were at their widest in this decade, especially when worn at court in England. Men’s coats retained the fullness of the previous decade with prominent sleeve cuffs and flared skirts, and the already established contrast between English understatement and French luxury is evident in contemporary portraiture.

Womenswear

François Boucher’s La Toilette (Fig. 5) offers a provocative view of an attractive young woman getting ready for the day, attended by her maidservant who holds out a cap for her approval. Seated close to a fireplace in an elegantly appointed, if slightly disheveled, domestic interior, she wears a white linen sleeved combing jacket, or peignoir, to protect her clothes from cosmetics (applied liberally applied to her face), hair powder and pomatum. Visible under the front opening of the combing jacket are her partially laced corset and the top ruffle of her linen chemise, the primary female undergarments. To secure her pale grey silk clocked stocking with a pink silk ribbon, she has lifted the petticoat of her blue silk gown over her knee, revealing both her white underpetticoat and the suggestively placed kitten playing with a ball of wool. Her maidservant wears a white silk robe à la française with the front corners of the hem tucked up into her petticoat pockets in a style known as retroussée dans les poches over a green silk petticoat. Their close-to-the-head curled coiffures worn with small beribboned caps and high-heeled mules (Fig. 6), primarily worn indoors, are the epitome of feminine fashion during this decade.

Although English women wore the open robe à la française, known as a sack, they often preferred all-in-one gowns, with the petticoat integral to the dress and its top edge concealed at the front by a stomacher (Fig. 7). In William Hogarth’s 1742 portrait of Mary Edwards (Fig. 8)—an heiress and loyal patron of the artist—the sitter wears “an English version of the French sack back gown” with “a closed skirt, rather than an open overskirt worn with a matching petticoat” (Chrisman 7-8).

Dress historian Kimberly Chrisman notes that although Edwards’s gown “is French in origin, the [large-scale] silk design is typical of English damasks of the period” and that her choice of this particular fabric “emphasizes the staunchly English character of the sitter” (Chrisman 8). A woman’s green silk dressing gown dating about 1740-1750 (Fig. 9) shows the impressive long repeats of these monochromatic textiles that depended on the reflection of light to appreciate fully their contrasting satin-and-plain weave surfaces. Like Madame de Jullienne, Mary Edwards has accessorized her gown with lace and jewelry. Although her cap, lappets, kerchief, and sleeve ruffles of expensive Brussels bobbin lace compliment her untrimmed red damask gown, she “wears a quantity of jewellery rarely seen in English portraiture, except for ceremonial or court dress” including “a parure of matching brilliant-cut diamonds together with a pearl necklace… gold rings, chatelaine, and watch” (Chrisman 8). Highly independent and enormously wealthy, Edwards was perceived as somewhat eccentric (Chrisman 1).

Gowns with fitted backs were also popular in England. In Hubert Gravelot’s painting of a young man reading to his female companion (Fig. 10), the attentive listener wears what was known as a “nightgown.” According to dress historian Anne Buck, “originally it probably did not reveal the petticoat;” later, however, “the front opening widened to reveal the petticoat” (Buck 43). As she also notes, although these gowns were often worn with matching petticoats, those that survive without this accompanying garment may well have been worn with a contrasting petticoat. In Gravelot’s quiet interior scene, the young woman wears a quilted pink silk petticoat with her oyster-white silk gown and a sheer white cotton apron. Quilted petticoats (Fig. 11) were much more widely worn in England than in France and they appear often in portraits and genre scenes, like this one. The informality and practicality of the nightgown were “emphasized by its being worn without hoops or very small ones, and with an apron” (Buck 43). In 1740, Lady Hartford wrote of her partiality to aprons when she was at home and that she could “not endure a hoop that would overturn all the chairs and stools in my closet” (quoted in Buck 43).

Chinoiserie silks were also in vogue during the 1740s. A brocaded satin robe à la française (Figs. 15, 16) with the newly fashionable oval sleeve cuffs combines familiar floral-and-foliate motifs with whimsical diminutive pagoda-like structures, seated figures in tall, pointed hats, and fantastical birds. A highly unusual robe à la française (Fig. 17) is hand-painted on a silk moiré ground with large-scale exotic and stylized blooms and serrated leaves on undulating stems “that transform its wearer into a floating garden” (Stewart 83). The gown also illustrates the type of rich trimmings that (in addition to self-fabric) characterize formal dresses of the third quarter of the eighteenth century. Here, “a passementerie lattice of crocheted netting ivory silk” net (Fig. 18) dotted with silk fly-fringe flowers decorates the front edges and a profusion of flowers and fly-fringe adorns the oval sleeve cuffs (Fig. 19) (Stewart 83).

By the 1730s in England, the mantua that had started out as a loose-fitting informal garment in the 1670s had become formalized with a tight-fitting bodice and a long narrow train looped up behind.

According to dress historian Madeleine Ginsburg, a mantua dating to the late 1740s in the collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum (Fig. 20) “is the most sumptuous piece of costume embroidery known to have survived… and unique in bearing the signature of one of its embroideresses” (Ginsburg 151). Spread across the front and back of the four-and-a-half-foot wide skirt are serpentine stems with large-scale stylized flowers that “recall the mixture of oriental and western motifs on Indian chintz hangings” of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, while the border “also looks back to older, more formal styles” (Ginsburg 151). The enormous cost involved in embroidering this expanse of fabric was compounded by the wearer’s change of mind—areas of colored silks on the back later oversewn with silver thread indicate that the gown originally was to be multicolored (Ginsburg 151). Ginsburg notes that the inscription on the reverse of the train, “Received of Mdme Lecompte by me Magd Giles,” may “have referred to the handing over of a large amount, approximately ten pounds, of expensive silver wire in several textures, plated, spangles and twist, or to the subcontracting of a very large complicated piece of work” (Ginsburg 151). The finished gown weighs a substantial 15 pounds.

In France, the long-fossilized grand habit remained obligatory court attire for women. In 1740, Louis Tocqué painted Queen Maria Leszynska in this three-piece ensemble comprising a heavily boned bodice, petticoat, and long train (Fig. 26). The brocaded silk with swirling polychrome flowers and scrolling gold bands is undoubtedly a product of Lyon, which had been the center of the silk weaving industry since the reign of Louis XIV. These renowned luxury commodities were sought after by affluent consumers and copied by weavers throughout Europe. In addition to the (undoubtedly French) lace tour de gorge and tiered, gathered sleeve ruffles and gold bobbin lace, the queen wears diamonds in her hair and a spectacular diamond-and-pearl stomacher brooch surrounded by gold bobbin lace. Diamond clasps secure her blue velvet ermine-lined mantle embroidered with large gold fleur-de-lys, and all of these reflective surfaces would have sparkled in candlelight.

In addition to plain silks, such as taffetas, that women might use for everyday dress, printed fabrics of cotton-and-linen mixture (with linen warps and cotton wefts) and linen were also available, particularly in England, where the bans against these textiles were less stringent than in France. Barbara Johnson (1738-1825), daughter of a clergyman from Olney, Buckinghamshire, kept a wardrobe diary between 1746 and 1823 that charts both her fabric preferences and changing fashions in textiles over this seventy-year span (see Timeline 1750s; 1770s; 1780s). A page from her album (Fig. 27) includes swatches of silks, cottons, and linen purchased from 1746 to 1749 to make up “a flower’d Calicoe [block-printed floral cotton] long sack;” “a Blue damask Coat [petticoat];” “a flower’d Cotton Jacket;” “a blue & white linnen long sack;” “a flower’d silk Robe-Coat [gown and petticoat];” and “a green Camblet [wool or wool-and-silk mixture) Coat” (Rothstein/Barbara Johnson’s Album of Styles and Fabrics, n. p.).

As her album confirms, Johnson wore sacks of silk, cotton, and linen, probably for a variety of occasions; her cotton jacket, however, would have been for informal wear.

Printed cottons were also within the purchasing power of working-class people. As historian of consumption John Styles states, “cotton was the fiber of industrial revolution,” processed “in “the new factories powered by water or steam that multiplied from the 1770s [and] housed machines invented specifically” for that purpose (Styles 109). In 1774, the Acts established in the early eighteenth century that prohibited “the wearing of pure cotton” were repealed, enabling “printing to be undertaken legally on fabric with a cotton warp and weft” (Styles 127).

In 1769, Richard Arkwright was granted a patent for the power-driven spinning frame that allowed for the manufacture of cotton threads strong enough to be used for the warp. Although expensive, hand-painted-and-dyed Indian cottons satisfied the desire for sartorial exclusivity among the wealthy, English manufacturers produced more affordable cotton-and-linen mixtures and linens that targeted plebian consumers, who appreciated them for their washability, fashion, and price (Styles 114).

In his exhaustive study of clothing worn by ordinary English men and women in the eighteenth century, Styles examined criminal records, inventories, diaries, and other documentary evidence, including the large collection of cotton and linen swatches in the London Foundling Hospital billet books (Figs. 28-30), dating from 1741 to 1760 that provide “an unparalleled archive of what ordinary women wore” (Styles 114). As he points out, although these printed textiles reflect current design trends, the frequent use of one or two colors and “the coarseness of the yarn, the density of the weave and the register of the printing” made them cheaper to produce and more attractive to those of lesser means, especially when compared with the alternatives of low-end wool and wool-and-silk mixtures (Styles 116, 118). However, as Styles notes, the success that cotton enjoyed as a dress fabric among women of the middling and working classes “resulted…from its superior appearance, not its cheapness” (Styles 127).

SECOND-HAND AND READY-MADE CLOTHING

Throughout the eighteenth century, men and women—including those of the working classes—had their clothes custom made. However, the thriving second-hand market and warehouses that sold ready-made garments and accessories were important sources for those of lesser means. From the beginning of the century, men could buy suits and loose-fitting gowns, while for women, day and at-home gowns and accessories were available. In 1747, R. Campbell, author of The London Tradesman, identified the second-hand industry:

“The Salesmen [or saleswomen] deal in Old Cloaths, and sometimes in New. They trade very largely, and some are worth some Thousands: they are mostly Taylors, at least, must have a perfect Skill in that Craft. I do not know [if] they take Apprentices as Salesmen, but they keep Journeymen, to whom they give common Taylor’s Wages.” (quoted in Lemire 70)

In her examination of this sector of the clothing market in eighteenth-century England, historian Beverly Lemire explains that “the second-hand trade in clothes flourished as one of the most common commercial transactions of the pre-industrial and early industrial period” and that by “[channeling] garments of fashion and utility through the largest segment of the population, [it] helped stimulate a greater industrial productivity and involved the majority of the population as sellers and buyers” (Lemire 67). The desire for and easy access to second-hand clothing in both large urban centers and smaller towns made it possible for those of the middle and laboring classes to purchase current fashions at reduced prices (Lemire 67).

However, the recycling of garments that started at the top caused consternation among those who adhered to the notion that one’s socio-economic status should be communicated by appropriate dress. In 1754, a commentator groused about the “tawdry Gentility of a Tallow-chandler’s Daughter… the aukward Pride of Dress in a Butcher’s Wife [and] numerous Fraternity of the Shabby-genteel” who wore altered, second-hand coats and waistcoats (quoted in Lemire 80). In spite of such complaints made continuously throughout the century, the second-hand clothing trade “developed new patterns of consumerism and bolstered the spread of popular fashions” (Lemire 80).

Beginning in the 1730s in London, the term “warehouse” (Fig. 25) referred to “any large shop that sold commodities cheaply and in quantity—especially fabrics, articles of ready-made clothing, personal accessories, fancy goods, [and] household wares” (Fawcett 32). Although a warehouse might sometimes be the “sales outlet for a single manufacturer,” it generally “served as agent and distributor for a variety of suppliers, retailing directly and also wholesaling to other tradesmen in its area” (Fawcett 32). Like today’s department stores, these retailing establishments depended on a rapid turnover of stock, “which in turn meant regular replenishment, moderate pricing… active sales promotion, and a standard rather than exclusive range of goods” (Fawcett). Additionally, while affluent consumers were usually extended credit by their fabric merchants, tailors, and dressmakers (the more affluent the customer, the more credit he or she generally received), those shopping at warehouses paid cash.

The spa city of Bath (Fig. 31) attracted many visitors who sought to cure their various ills by drinking or submerging themselves in the mineral waters as well as those who wanted to enjoy the numerous leisure activities it offered—including shopping—and the surrounding scenic beauty. Retail warehouses were a fixture of Bath from the 1740s. In 1744, the firm of Francis Bennett & Co. that dealt in linen and woolens used the term “when they referred to [their] main warehouse in Abbey Churchyard and to ‘their several other Ware-Houses in Bath’” (quoted in Fawcett 32). In this notice that appeared in the Bath Journal on both June 4 and October 4, the drapers also indicated that their policy was to sell at the lowest prices possible and to accept only “ready money” (quoted in Fawcett 32). In 1748, Elizabeth Chancellor, a lace dealer with a warehouse in London, placed an advertisement in the Bath Journal notifying customers that she received weekly consignments from her establishment in the capital at her recently opened premises in Bath (Fawcett 32).

Fashion Icon: PAMELA, or Virtue Rewarded (1740)

In the novel itself, Pamela’s clothes play a key role in the narrative (Figs. 1-5). As literary historian Carey McIntosh argues, “the peculiar aptness of this symbolic leitmotif in Pamela is a consequence of intrinsic functional relationships between clothing and, on the one hand, sex, on the other, social position” (McIntosh 75). At the beginning of the novel, Pamela receives mourning clothes paid by her late employer, as was customary; however, “Mr. B,” her mistress’s son, also gives her “a Suit of my Lady’s [silk] Cloaths, and half a Dozen of her Shifts, and Six fine Handkerchiefs, and Three of her Cambrick Aprons, and Four Holland ones” (quoted in McIntosh 75). Although she deems them unsuitable for her own use, she reluctantly agrees to wear these garments that set her apart from the other female servants in the house. The ill-intentioned Mr. B. subsequently offers her more finery from his mother’s wardrobe including lace headwear, silk shoes, silver buckles, ribbons, cotton and silk stockings, and “two pair of rich stays” that she later acknowledges “were to be the Price of my Shame” (quoted in McIntosh 76). Later, in anticipation of leaving Mr. B’s house and returning to her farmer parents, she makes herself a “Dress that will become my position…of good sad-colour’d Stuff [wool]” (quoted in McIntosh 75). To accessorize this humble garment suitable for village life, Pamela—who has learned to appreciate more upscale clothing— purchases:

“two pretty round-eared caps, a little straw hat and a pair of knit-mittens turned up with white calico and two pair of blue worsted [wool] hose, with white clocks that make a smartish appearance… and two yards of black ribband for my shift sleeves and to serve as a necklace” from a peddler (quoted in Buck 25).

About to make her departure, she surveys herself outfitted in her “new garb” in a mirror and finds that, “To say truth I never liked myself so well in my life” (quoted in Buck 25). 

In Joseph Highmore’s painting of the departure scene (Fig. 4), we see Pamela through the carriage window wearing her “little straw hat” to which she has added blue ribbons. The straw hat, worn by working-class women as well as those of higher status engaged in leisurely country pursuits, would be Pamela’s legacy to fashion. At the end of the century, in 1793, the well-known French actress, Mademoiselle Lange, played the role of Richardson’s heroine in a stage adaptation of the novel, and her “chapeau à la Paméla” was immediately popular. In 1802, a fashion plate in the Journal des Dames et des Modes (Fig. 6) illustrates a young woman in a high-waisted dress and a “chapeau à la Paméla;” the editor noted that although they were “very simple, and therefore very easy to copy, and of an affordable price,” they were still worn exclusively by “the class of opulent women.”  Many other iterations of Pamela’s “little straw hat” would follow in the nineteenth century.

Menswear

Another portrait by Devis, William Farrington of Shawe Hall, Lancashire (Fig. 3), depicts this member of the gentry in a frock coat, a style closely associated with the informality of English dress, especially in the country. Posed in a generic landscape with his hound, Farrington’s roomy brown wool frock has a matching velvet turned-down collar and large pockets; his white linen handkerchief trails casually from the left pocket. Dress historian Aileen Ribeiro notes that the frock coat began as as a working-class garment and was adopted by affluent Englishmen in the mid-1720s when it was “first worn for hunting and shooting and other rural pursuits” (Ribeiro 22). Somewhat uncharacteristically for the informality of this garment, Farrington’s black waistcoat and breeches appear to be velvet, with fur or plush lining to his waistcoat.

Like the frock, the ‘surtout’ or greatcoat that also originated from working-class dress “became a fashionable item at first in the Englishman’s wardrobe, and then adopted by the rest of Europe” (Ribeiro 22). This loose-fitting wool coat incorporated “a back vent necessary for riding and a large collar which could be turned up in bad weather” (Ribeiro 22). Just a year after he established the Foundling Hospital in 1739, Captain Thomas Coram (Fig. 4) was painted by William Hogarth, who was also instrumental in this philanthropic venture to care for unwanted babies and children. Coram’s unassuming personality is underscored by his choice of clothing: a brown wool greatcoat over a matching black three-piece suit, plain linen shirt, black stockings, and black shoes. His untrimmed three-cornered hat is at his feet and his white hair is evidence of age, rather than the use of powder.

Although known for—and often depicted in—informal clothing, Englishmen did not shy away from richly woven silks when the occasion called for it. In near-pristine condition and clearly treasured by the original wearer and its subsequent owners, a formal blue silk waistcoat (Fig. 5) is brocaded with a floral-and-foliate design in which the silver and silver-gilt threads are far more abundant than those of polychrome silk. As was typical throughout the eighteenth century, the upper sleeves and back are of a much less expensive fabric (here, wool). Very little information is known today about the wearers and makers of eighteenth-century garments and textiles. Remarkably, Anna Maria Garthwaite’s design for this silk, dated October 23, 1747, is held by the Victoria & Albert Museum (Fig. 6) and it identifies the weaver, Peter Lekeux. Notations on the design specify “the metal threads to be used in the weaving… ‘dark yellow plate’ (a plain, metal strip); ‘light yellow plain’ (a metal strip wound around a silk or linen core); and ‘grey frosted’ (a textured thread that sparkles)” (The Met).

CHILDREN’S WEAR

(BY SUMMER LEE)

A 1742 painting titled The Graham Children depicts the four children of Daniel Graham: Thomas, Henrietta, Anna Maria and Richard (Fig. 3). Thomas, who was less than two years old at the time of painting, wears short clothes and a tight-fitting cap on his head. Henrietta and Anna Maria wear gowns with bell-shaped skirt silhouettes, in solid blue and ivory floral fabrics respectively. They both wear white aprons, frilly sleeves, and flowery headdresses. It should be noted that their stiff, conical torsos are achieved by wearing stays, a predecessor of the corset. In her book, The Corset: A Cultural History, Valerie Steele uses The Graham Children as an example of “the ubiquity of stay-wearing” (Steele 21). On the far right, young Richard wears a men’s suit. His coat and breeches are green and his waistcoat is light brown.

Another visual resource for 1740s children’s fashions is the painting Children Playing with a Hobby Horse, dated circa 1741-1747 (Fig. 4). On the far left, a young boy wears a red menswear suit with black stockings and a black cap on his head. The other children wear gowns with back-opening bodices and leading strings, both of which are plainly visible on the girl in the dark blue dress. Two girls wear a neckerchief, or fichu, around their necks. The girl on the far right appears to play with a moretta mask.

A portrait of Infanta Maria Luisa of Spain circa 1748 depicts her at the age of three (Fig. 5). Her gown is made of a luxurious pink silk with glittering silver metallic threads, and adorned with flowers and lace. It contains clear markers of childhood: her bodice opens at the back, and she carries a delicate, lacy apron in her arms. The silhouette of her skirt is very wide at the hips, however, mimicking the more extreme court fashions for contemporary womenswear.

References:

• Buck, Anne. Dress in Eighteenth-Century England. London: B. T. Batsford, 1979. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1148934170
• Buck, Anne. “Pamela’s Clothes.” Costume, No. 26 (1992): 21-31. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/888619566
• Callahan, Colleen R. “Children’s Clothing.” In The Berg Companion to Fashion, edited by Valerie Steele. Oxford: Bloomsbury Academic, 2010. Accessed August 08, 2020. http://dx.doi.org/10.5040/9781474264716.0003223.
• Chrisman, Kimberly. “Mary Edwards’s Taste and High Life.” Costume, No. 35 (2001): 1-13. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/888619566
• “Childhood.” In European Renaissance and Reformation, 1350-1600, edited by Norman J. Wilson, 319-321. Vol. 1 of World Eras. Detroit, MI: Gale, 2001. Gale eBooks (accessed August 7, 2020). https://libproxy.fitsuny.edu:2653/apps/doc/CX3034600137/GVRL?u=fitsuny&sid=GVRL&xid=480f4328.
• De Gregorio, Billy. In Cora Ginsburg: A Catalogue of exquisite & rare works of art including 17^th to 19^th century costume textiles & needlework. New York, 2019. https://issuu.com/coraginsburg/docs/catalogue_1-single-highres?fr=sNDYyODE1NzQwNzU (Accessed 6/18/21)
• Cunnington, C. Willett. Handbook of English Costume in the Eighteenth Century. London: Faber, 1972. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/397113
• Fawcett, Trevor. “Bath’s Georgian Warehouses.” Costume, Vol. 26, No. 1(1992): 32-39. 
• “Introduction to 18th-Century Fashion.” Victoria and Albert Museum, January 25, 2011. http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/i/introduction-to-18th-century-fashion/.
• Ginsburg, Madeleine. “Ladies Court Dress: Economy and Magnificence.” In The V & A Album, 5, 1988: (142-154). http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/902005871
• Jeffares, Neil. “La Tour, Duval de L’Épinay.” http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1177107369 (Accessed 6/18/21).
• Keymer, Thomas, and Peter Sabor. Pamela in the Marketplace: Literary Controversy and Print Culture in Eighteenth-Century Britain and Ireland. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/46641908
• Lemire, Beverly. “Peddling Fashion: Salesmen, Pawnbrokers, Taylors, Thieves, and the Second-hand Clothes Trade in England, c. 1700-1800.” Textile History, Vol. 22, No. 1 (1991): 67-82. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/474043958
• Levey, Santina. Lace: A History. London: Victoria & Albert Museum; Leeds: W.S. Maney, 1983. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1254027401
• Magidson, Phyllis. “Fashion.” In Encyclopedia of Children and Childhood: In History and Society, edited by Paula S. Fass, 344-348. Vol. 2. New York, NY: Macmillan Reference USA, 2004. Gale eBooks (accessed August 7, 2020). http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/874270742 
• McIntosh, Carey. “Pamela’s Clothes.” ELH, Vol. 35, No. 1 (March 1968): 75-83. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/5552834691
• Nunn, Joan. Fashion in Costume 1200-2000. Bridgewater, NJ: Distributed by Paw Prints/Baker & Taylor, 2008. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/232125801
• Pointon, Marcia. Hanging the Head: Portraiture and Social Formation in Eighteenth-Century England. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/925097861
• Pratt, Lucy, and Linda Woolley. Shoes. London: V & A Publications, 1999. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/256750343
• Reinier, Jacqueline S. “Breeching.” In Encyclopedia of Children and Childhood: In History and Society, edited by Paula S. Fass, 118. Vol. 1. New York, NY: Macmillan Reference USA, 2004. Gale eBooks (accessed August 7, 2020). https://libproxy.fitsuny.edu:2653/apps/doc/CX3402800074/GVRL?u=fitsuny&sid=GVRL&xid=360a7a45.
• Ribeiro, Aileen. Dress in Eighteenth Century Europe. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2002. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/912425456
• Roche, Daniel. The Culture of Clothing: Dress and Fashion in the Ancien Regime. Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/24247707
• “Robe à la française, British, 1740s.” Metropolitan Museum of Art. https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/79893. Accessed 6/21/21.
• Rothstein, Natalie, ed. A Lady of Fashion: Barbara Johnson’s Album of Styles and Fabrics. London: Thames and Hudson, 1987. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/748992365
• Rothstein, Natalie. Silk Designs of the Eighteenth Century in the Collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Boston: Little, Brown, 1990. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/246549873
• Steele, Valerie. The Corset: A Cultural History. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1013954828
• Stewart, Kristen. “Dress (Robe à la française). In Amelia Peck, ed. Interwoven Globe: The Worldwide Textile Trade, 1500-1800. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2013.  http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/865169749
• Tortora, Phyllis G., and Sara B. Marcketti. “The Eighteenth Century 1700–1790.” In Survey of Historic Costume, 266–297. New York: Fairchild Books, 2015. Accessed August 07, 2020. http://dx.doi.org/10.5040/9781501304194.ch-010.
• Victoria and Albert Museum. “Swaddling Band.” V&A Collections. Accessed August 08, 2020. http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O62960/swaddling-band/.duction-to-20th-century-fashion/.
• Waugh, Norah. The Cut of Men’s Clothes. New York: Theatre Arts Books, 1964. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/756979502
• Waugh, Norah. The Cut of Women’s Clothes, 1600-1930. New York: Theatre Arts Books, 1968. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1074444804

Secondary Sources

Also see the 18th-century overview page for more research sources… or browse our Zotero library.