Diploma Lecture Series 2012 Absolutism to Enlightenment: European Art and Culture 1665-1765 Fashion Revolution: Dress in The
Diploma Lecture Series 2012 Absolutism to enlightenment: European art and culture 1665-1765 Fashion revolution: dress in the 18th century Professor Peter McNeil 8 & 9 August 2012 Lecture summary: In the eighteenth century clothing introduced and worn at court ceased to be the principal motor of fashionable dress, which became more accessible to the populace of industrializing west Europe. The strict codification of dress backed by sumptuary laws asserting an unchanging social structure, was completely undone by social, philosophical, scientific, political and economic change. Rising incomes, the spread of literacy and print culture, the introduction of new cottons and cheaper techniques of production and printing meant that more types and numbers of garments and fabrics entered the wardrobes of the bourgeoisie, as well as artisans, tenant farmers, mechanics and the servant class. The consumer appears for the first time as a social character. People were more than citizens, tax- payers or identified by their occupation: what they consumed came to communicate their identity. Shops increased in number and were frequented by all social classes. The luxury trades and the ‘appearance industry’ (clothing, wigging, make-up, deportment) were a central feature of the economy, employing close to one third of the masters in a city. The idea of fashion as the aspiration to something new, in replacement of what one already owns, emerged. Components of Dress: grand habit - female court dress = skirt, petticoat, mantua (mantle), apron, whaleboned bodice ( corps de robe ), stays, lappets (headdress) sacque or robe à la française - panels from shoulder, formal dress robe à l'anglaise - fitted at back (informal, not court dress, began to be worn at some court events at the end of the century) habit à la francaise - men's suit coat ( justaucorps ), skirted waistcoat ( veste ), waistcoat without skirts ( gilet ), breeches dressing or wrapping gown - banyan (English term, for men's wrapper) French Guilds ( a selection of the more than 30 involved with clothing): 1.
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