La Belle Personne

Fashion Friday 

Ladies, are you ready for traveling season?  June is nearly upon us which means we must update our wardrobes with attire appropriate for traveling and spending more time outside. Good thing Godey’s Lady’s Book and Magazine devoted its June 1850 issue to promenade dresses, riding-habits, walking-dresses and “evening dresses for watering-places” (ahem, aka venues for liquid refreshments). If you’re unsure about how best to dress yourself for your upcoming vacations, or concerned you may not have the appropriate attire to take your next walk, please study the above illustrations.  We have tried to compile a more concise version of the most essential advise for you below but bear with us, dear viewer, as this post is a bit longer than usual—the advice was plentiful this issue and we dared not shirk our duties of preparing you properly.

A note on Evening dresses this season, please reference the full-color illustration:

Double and triple skirts are fashionable for spring dresses.  If you opt for a triple skirt, use a lighter fabric such as crepe lisse.

Monochromatic schemes are popular this June, so Godey’s advises that any piping, (whether straight lines or scalloped) be done in the same color but in a contrasting fabric that in your dress.  Likewise for any detailing, like flowers, used to pin up your over-skirt. Coordinate the chaining or piping done on your skirts with that on your tunic and berthé.

Hairstyles should be simple to show off accessories such as “a wreath of convolvulus and foliage.” Try to match your bouquet de corsage with the same flowers as your hair adornments.

The Grecian corsage is back in favor so don’t shy away from creating a corsage of grape leaves and vine leaves. Notice for example in our first illustration, how beautifully the purple and green colors of this style  contrast with a cheerful corn yellow dress.

Advice from the article “Chit-chat upon the fashions for June”:

The best material for traveling dresses is cashmere de baize, which is composed up silk and worsted.  This material resembles, but is preferable to, linen lustre as it won’t wrinkle or retain dust as much.

“No buttons that do not button anything are allowed”

Plain linen collars are still the most proper for traveling.

“A pocket should never be omitted in a traveling dress” (We plead that contemporary designers take heed of this advice on pockets. What lady has not desired more pockets?)

“It is a good plan to take only strong linen handkerchiefs, that may serve as dusters, if occasion demands, without being ruined.”

“There is no greater folly than to travel with a dress hat,” a coarse straw hat smartly rimmed with ribbon will service you better on your journey.

Riding dresses of rich olive green or brown are in vogue.

Parasols are considered more tasteful this season sans fringe or embroidery; dark green or blue are the most serviceable colors for traveling. “White or cream-colored parasols are unfit, except for an open carriage.”

We hope that our viewers now feel prepared to pack their travel trunks, confident in fashion selections that are both chic and practical! If you haven’t caught up on the advice from Godey’s Lady’s Book, you can do so by reading some of our previous posts, but please note that with the seasons’ fashions do change so we advise readers not to model their attire on the advice from previous months.  

Or, view our other Fashion Friday posts to ensure your style sense is well-rounded.

Dinner dress 

Design House: Redfern (1847–1940)

Date:1909–11

Culture: British 

Medium: silk, metal

Evening Dress

c.1850-1855

During the 1850s in France, there was renewed interest in eighteenth-century literature, art, and architecture and nostalgia for the lost world of Louis XV and his mistress Madame de Pompadour, who symbolized gracious living for the aristocracy and newly rich bourgeoisie. The resurgence of interest in rococo artists included reissues in England and France of engravings after the ornamental designs and paintings of Jean-Antoine Watteau. The fabric itself, a Jacquard-woven silk produced in Lyons, reveals the derivative nature of mid-nineteenth-century textile design, which often used elements copied directly from prints of the work of well-known artists.

For the fabric of this ball gown, two images by Jacques-Philippe Le Bas after Watteau have been combined. It is likely that the fabric was originally meant to have been used for furnishings, probably for a bedroom or boudoir (dressing room or private sitting room). The silk’s swing design would have been considered provocative for the time since it had long been associated with love-making and seduction. The gown was possibly worn originally by a member of the demimonde such as an actress-or by a naive young woman. The choice of the swing theme was especially appropriate for an evening dress, in which the wearer would want to appear demure yet flirtatious.