Hello! I am very rarely on Tumblr anymore (I haven't posted in months) but I wanted to use this moment as a little update. Last weekend, I attended the last few days of the Jane Austen Festival in Bath with my lovely boyfriend. We've attended before, in straight up Regency dress (for me, that means an empire line dress) but the definition of 'Regency' is very fluid and many people dress in clothes from the late 18th century all the way up to the 1830s at these events. So, several months ago, I had a Chemise a la Reine made for myself, one of my favourite looks from the very late 18th century. It was a style that was popularised by Marie Antoinette (with, from my own research, actual roots in the fashions of free women of colour in the West Indies) - it was much more relaxed than court dress, even scandalously so (many thought it was too close to underwear), rather pastoral in style....and it took Europe by storm. My Chemise a la Reine really looked lovely on me. I genuinely felt very pretty, very glamorous, very much Looking the Part. Women didn't really wear Chemise a la Reine to balls but it doesn't matter, I felt ready to see and be seen! My boyfriend and I walked around Bath in our outfits to get to different events & we were stopped multiple times by people for photographs and compliments. It was great.
I wore my Chemise a la Reine at the Grand Regency Ball last Saturday night. My boyfriend was dressed in the uniform of a Guardsman Surgeon in Napoleon's Imperial Army. He doesn't much like Napoleon himself, but he's very into the surgery and medicine used on the Napoleonic battlefield, particularly the work of Baron Larrey. He looked so handsome and smart in my opinion. He got more compliments than me! I realise now that we were both extremely "French" for a Jane Austen celebration but hey....one of Jane's cousins married a French aristocrat, who ended up being guillotined! So her cousin came back to England and lived with the Austens for a bit (eventually re-marrying one of Jane's brothers) - she was sympathetic to her French brothers and sisters! Even if I'm sure she would have given Napoleon a smack around the head if she'd had the chance!
Nowadays, you will find me on Instagram (my handle is astreabehn) & Twitter/X (my handle is nellgwynnes). On my Instagram specifically, I posted many many many more pictures of the Grand Regency Ball, including my boyfriend's outfit. Follow me there and we will speak anon!
