English Costume Part 33

[Ill.u.s.tration: A MAN OF THE TIME OF CHARLES II. (1660-1685)

This shows the dress during the first half of the reign. The feature of groups of ribboning is shown, with the short sleeve, the full s.h.i.+rt, and the petticoat.]

Our hats, broad-brimmed and stiff, are loaded with feathers; our little cloaks are barred with silk and lace and gold cord; our shoes are square-toed and high-heeled, and are tied with a long-ended bow of ribbon.

[Ill.u.s.tration: {A man of the time of Charles II.; a type of sleeve; the back of a coat}]

Ribbon reigns triumphant: it ties our periwigs into bunches at the ends; it hangs in loops round our waists; it ties our s.h.i.+rt-sleeves up in several places; it twists itself round our knees. It is on our hats and heads, and necks and arms, and legs and shoes, and it peers out of the tops of our boots. Divines rave, moralists rush into print, to no purpose. The names seem to convey a sense of luxury: dove-coloured silk brocade, Rhingrave breeches, white lutestring seamed all over with scarlet and silver lace, sleeves whipt with a point lace, coat trimmed and figured with silver twist or satin ribbon; canvas, camblet, galloon and shamey, vellam b.u.t.tons and taffety ribbons. The cannons, those bunches of ribbons round our knees, and the confidents, those bunches of curls by our ladies' cheeks, do not shake at the thunderings of Mr. Baxter or other moral gentlemen who regard a Maypole as a stinking idol. Mr. Hall writes on 'The Loathsomeness of Long Hair,' Mr. Prynne on 'The Unloveliness of Lovelocks,' and we do not care a pinch of rappe.

Little moustaches and tiny lip beards grow under careful treatment, and the ladies wear a solar system in patches on their cheeks.

The ladies soon escaped the bondage of the broad Puritan collars, and all these had hid was exposed. The sleeves left the arms bare to the elbow, and, being slit above and joined loosely by ribbons, showed the arm nearly to the shoulder. The sleeves of these dresses also followed the masculine fas.h.i.+on of little cuffs and tied-up linen under-sleeves.

The bodices came to a peak in front and were round behind. The skirts were full, satin being favoured, and when held up showed a satin petticoat with a long train. The ladies, for a time, indulged in a peculiar loop of hair on their foreheads, called a 'fore-top,' which gave rise to another fas.h.i.+on, less common, called a 'taure,' or bull's head, being an arrangement of hair on the forehead resembling the close curls of a bull. The loose curls on the forehead were called 'favorites'; the long locks arranged to hang away from the face over the ears were called 'heart-breakers'; and the curls close to the cheek were called 'confidents.' Ladies wore cloaks with baggy hoods for travelling, and for the Mall the same hats as men, loaded with feathers.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A MAN OF THE TIME OF CHARLES II. (1660-1685)

This is the change which came over men's dress on or about October, 1666. It is the new-fas.h.i.+oned vest or body-coat introduced to the notice of Charles by John Evelyn.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: {A man of the time of Charles II.}]

[Ill.u.s.tration: {A man of the time of Charles II.}]

I am going to leave the change in dress during this reign to the next chapter, in which you will read how it struck Mr. Pepys. This change separates the old world of dress from the new; it is the advent of frocked coats, the ancestor of our frock-coat. It finishes completely the series of evolutions beginning with the old tunic, running through the gown stages to the doublet of Elizabethan times, lives in the half coat, half doublet of Charles I., and ends in the absurd little jackets of Charles II., who, sartorially, steps from the end of the Middle Ages into the New Ages, closes the door on a wardrobe of brilliant eccentricity, and opens a cupboard containing our first frock-coat.

PEPYS AND CLOTHES

It is not really necessary for me to remind the reader that one of the best companions in the world, Samuel Pepys, was the son of a tailor.

Possibly--I say possibly because the argument is really absurd--he may have inherited his great interest in clothes from his father. You see where the argument leads in the end: that all men to take an interest in clothes must be born tailors' sons. This is no more true of Adam, who certainly did interest himself, than it is of myself.

Pepys was educated at St. Paul's School, went to Trinity College, Cambridge, got drunk there, and took a scholars.h.i.+p. He married when he was twenty-two a girl of fifteen, the daughter of a Huguenot. He was born in 1633, three years after the birth of Charles II., of outrageous but delightful memory, and he commenced his Diary in 1660, the year in which Charles entered London, ending it in 1669, owing to his increasing weakness of sight. He was made Secretary to the Admiralty in 1672, in 1673 he became a member of Parliament, was sent to the Tower as a Papist in 1679, and released in 1680. In 1684 he became President of the Royal Society, and he died in 1703, and is buried in St. Olave's, Crutched Friars.

Pepys mentions, in 1660, his coat with long skirts, fur cap, and buckles on his shoes. The coat was, doubtless, an old-fas.h.i.+oned Cromwellian coat with no waist.

Later he goes to see Mr. Calthrop, and wears his white suit with silver lace, having left off his great skirt-coat. He leaves Mr.

Calthrop to lay up his money and change his shoes and stockings.

He mentions his scarlet waistclothes, presumably a sash, and regards Mr. John Pickering as an a.s.s because of his feathers and his new suit made at the Hague. He mentions his linning stockings and wide cannons.

This mention of wide cannons leads me to suppose that at this time any ornament at the knee would be called cannons, whether it was a part of the breeches or the stockings, or a separate frill or bunch of ribbons to put on.

On July 1, still in the same year, comes home his fine camlett cloak and gold b.u.t.tons; also a silk suit. Later he buys a jackanapes coat with silver b.u.t.tons. Then he and Mr. Pin, the tailor, agree upon a velvet coat and cap ('the first I ever had'). He buys short black stockings to wear over silk ones for mourning.

[Ill.u.s.tration: {Two women of the time of Charles II.}]

On October 7 he says that, long cloaks being out of fas.h.i.+on, he must get a short one. He speaks of a suit made in France for My Lord costing 200. He mentions ladies' masks.

In 1662 his wife has a pair of peruques of hair and a new-fas.h.i.+oned petticoat of sancenett with black, broad lace. Smocks are mentioned, and linen petticoats.

He has a riding-suit with close knees.

His new lace band is so neat that he is resolved they shall be his great expense. He wears a scallop. In 1663 he has a new black cloth suit, with white linings under all--as the fas.h.i.+on is--to appear under the breeches.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A WOMAN OF THE TIME OF CHARLES II. (1650-1685)

You will notice her hair in ringlets tied with a ribbon, and dressed over a frame at the sides.]

The Queen wears a white-laced waistcoat and a crimson short petticoat. Ladies are wearing hats covered with feathers.

[Ill.u.s.tration: {Three types of wig for men}]

G.o.d willing, he will begin next week to wear his three-pound periwig.

He has spent last month (October) 12 on Miss Pepys, and 55 on his clothes. He has silk tops for his legs and a new s.h.a.g gown. He has a close-bodied coat, light-coloured cloth with a gold edge. He sees Lady Castlemaine in yellow satin with a pinner on.

In 1664 his wife begins to wear light-coloured locks.

In 1665 there is a new fas.h.i.+on for ladies of yellow bird's-eye hood.

There is a fear of the hair of periwigs during the Plague. Even in the middle of the Plague Pepys ponders on the next fas.h.i.+on.

In 1666 women begin to wear b.u.t.toned-up riding-coats, hats and periwigs.

On October 8 the King says he will set a thrifty fas.h.i.+on in clothes.

At this momentous date in history we must break for a minute from our friend Pepys, and hear how this came about. Evelyn had given the King his pamphlet ent.i.tled 'Tyrannus, or the Mode.' The King reads the pamphlet, and is struck with the idea of the Persian coat. A long pause may be made here, in which the reader may float on a mental cloud back into the dim ages in the East, and there behold a transmogrified edition of his own frock-coat gracing the back of some staid philosopher. Evelyn had also published 'Mundus Muliebris; or, the Ladies' Dressing-Room Unlocked.'

[Ill.u.s.tration: {A woman of the time of Charles II.}]

So, only one month after the Great Fire of London, only a short time before the Dutch burnt s.h.i.+ps in the Medway, only a year after the Plague, King Charles decides to reform the fas.h.i.+on. By October 13 the new vests are made, and the King and the Duke of York try them on. On the fifteenth the King wears his in public, and says he will never change to another fas.h.i.+on. 'It is,' says Pepys, 'a long ca.s.socke close to the body, of black cloth and pinked with white silk under it, and a coat over it, and the legs ruffled with black ribband like a pigeon's legs.'

[Ill.u.s.tration: {A woman of the time of Charles II.}]

The ladies, to make an alteration, are to wear short skirts. Nell Gwynne had a neat ankle, so I imagine she had a hand in this fas.h.i.+on.

On October 17 the King, seeing Lord St. Alban in an all black suit, says that the black and white makes them look too much like magpies.

He bespeaks one of all black velvet.

Sir Philip Howard increases in the Eastern fas.h.i.+on, and wears a nightgown and a turban like a Turk.

On November 2 Pepys buys a vest like the King's.

On November 22 the King of France, Louis XIV., who had declared war against England earlier in the year, says that he will dress all his footmen in vests like the King of England. However, fas.h.i.+on is beyond the power of royal command, and the world soon followed in the matter of the Persian coat and vest, even to the present day.

[Ill.u.s.tration: {A woman of the time of Charles II.}]

Next year, 1667, Pepys notes that Lady Newcastle, in her velvet cap and her hair about her ears, is the talk of the town. She wears a number of black patches because of the pimples about her mouth, she is naked-necked (no great peculiarity), and she wears a _just au corps_, which is a close body-coat.

[Ill.u.s.tration: {A woman of the time of Charles II.}]

Pepys notices the shepherd at Epsom with his wool-knit stockings of two colours, mixed. He wears a new camlett cloak. The shoe-strings have given place to buckles, and children wear long coats.