I know that comparing Bridgerton costumes to actual historical garments is asking for a headache. But I do like thinking of Penelope causing a Featherington panic with her close-to-plain wedding dress.
Because who else in Regency England was wearing plain, unadorned silk wedding dresses? The religious group known as the Quakers, that's who.
On the left we have fictitious Penelope Featherington, about to become Penelope Bridgerton. On the right we have a real wedding dress worn by a Quaker woman, Lydia Poultney, in 1809. While made of a sumptuous fabric, it is unadorned - a specific religious statement for a Quaker.
Pen's hair clip and hem ruffles here edge away from pure plainness, but are not out of place for plainer Quaker dresses in the 19th century- they'd often have some hem folding or subdued ruffling. And Colin's looking very plain from the side!
Many Quakers in the 18th and 19th century followed "plain" guidelines for their lifestyle and dress. There were Quakers who didn't follow these - called "gay" Quakers! For those Quakers who did dress plainly, it was an expression of their belief in the equality of human beings before God.
Quakers expressed this in other ways, too. Women who were moved to preach in a Quaker service were allowed to. Many Quakers were active as hospital and prison reformers, as abolitionists and, in the U.S., in the Underground Railroad helping slaves escape. They often applied their beliefs into economic activism that carried weight because they were businesspeople, too.
So! Imagine Portia Featherington seeing Penelope's wedding dress and panicking. First Penelope was doing all that talking to Lord Debling that involved opening books. Pen's always been dreadfully thoughtful. Now a nearly plain dress on her wedding day - is Penelope about to declare for the Quakers? That Colin has been dressing awfully simply himself. What's next? Sweeping the sugar bowls off the tables? Disowning her family for their frippery and financial crimes? Not speaking to her worldly mamma any more?
Learning that Pen's extracurricular activities were non-Quaker to the extreme - gossiping! - would have led Portia to sigh with relief, briefly.
For more about Regency Quaker dress and activities, see...
Quaker Plainness in the 19th Century
Dating a Green 1820s Dress with Quaker examples
How 18th-century Quakers led a boycott of sugar to protest against slavery
The Relinquishment of Plain dress: British Quaker women's abandonment of Plain Quaker attire, 1860-1914 - Thanks for your thesis, Hannah Francis Rumball, I'm really enjoying it. Lots of Quaker wedding dresses in here!
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Is there anyone who is going to the Bridgerton Ball in London in November with the secret cinema?? If so have you got a dress yet and how are you doing your hair??
