Tea at Trianon: Eighteenth-Century Undergarments

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Tuesday, May 23, 2017

Eighteenth-Century Undergarments

A primer on shifts, stays, panniers, pockets, stockings and garters. To quote:

Stockings then and now are pretty much the same in shape but not in materials since they could be made of woven as well as knitted silk or wool. My favourite part of 18th century stockings is the over-the-top decoration and the bright colours these people wore (and here I am with a closet full of black and grey clothes!). Since (obviously) there was no spandex back in the day, you had to use garters (ribbon or tape) to keep the stockings in place, and of course those must have a little colourful party too with embroideries, gilded threads, knitted materials, satin colours and phrases and monograms. (Read more.)