1795–1820 in Western fashion

Fashion in the period 1795–1820 in European and European-influenced countries saw the final triumph of undress or informal styles over the brocades, lace, periwigs and powder of the earlier 18th century.

[1] As a result, the shifts that occurred in fashion at the turn of the 19th century granted the opportunity to present new public identities that also provided insights into their private selves.

Katherine Aaslestad indicates how "fashion, embodying new social values, emerged as a key site of confrontation between tradition and change.

But the broadest definition of the period, characterized by trends in fashion, architecture, culture, and politics, begins with the French Revolution of 1789 and ends with Queen Victoria's 1837 accession.

The names of popular people who lived in this time are still famous: Napoleon and Josephine, Juliette Récamier, Jane Austen, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Lord Byron, Beau Brummell, Lady Emma Hamilton, Queen Louise of Prussia and her husband Frederick William III, and many more.

In Germany, republican city-states relinquished their traditional, modest, and practical garments and started to embrace the French and English fashion trends of short-sleeved chemise dresses and Spencer jackets.

In the Regency years, complicated historic and orientalist elements provided lavish stylistic displays as such details were a vigorous vehicle for conspicuous consumption given their labor-intensive fabrications, and therefore a potent signifier of hierarchy for the upper classes who wore the styles.

People sought efficiency and variety; under the influence of the Industrial Revolution, improved transportation and introduction of machines in manufacturing allowed fashion to develop at an even faster pace.

Women's fashion around this time started to follow classical ideals, inspired by the ancient Greek and Roman style with its gracious, loosely falling dresses that were gathered or just accentuated over the natural waist under the bust.

The dresses were usually light, long, and fit loosely, they were usually in white and often sheer from the ankle to just below the bodice which strongly emphasized thin hem and tied around the body.

A long rectangular shawl or wrap, very often plain red but with a decorated border in portraits, helped in colder weather and was apparently lain around the midriff when seated—for which sprawling semi-recumbent postures were favored.

Often masses of curls were worn over the forehead and ears, with the longer back hair drawn up into loose buns or Psyche knots influenced by Greek and Roman styles.

The first was the chemise, or shift, a thin garment with tight, short sleeves (and a low neckline if worn under evening wear), made of white cotton and finished with a plain hem that was shorter than the dress.

In fact, washerwomen of the time used coarse soap when scrubbing these garments, then plunged them in boiling water, hence the absence of color, lace, or other embellishments, which would have faded or damaged the fabric under such rough treatment.

While high-waisted classical fashions required no corset for the slight of figure, most ordinary women still wore some kind of bust support, although the aim was to look as if they were not.

Stockings (hosiery), made of silk or knitted cotton, were held up by garters below the knee until suspenders were introduced in the late 19th century and were often of a white or pale flesh color.

The redingote, another popular example, was a full-length garment resembling a man's riding coat (hence the name) in style, that could be made of different fabrics and patterns.

These outer garments were often made of double sarsnet, fine Merino cloth, or velvets, and trimmed with furs, such as swan's down, fox, chinchilla, or sable.

Made of paper or silk on sticks of ivory and wood, and printed with oriental motifs or popular scenes of the era, these ubiquitous accessories featured a variety of shapes and styles, such as pleated or rigid.

[16] As an aid to her performances of tragic mythological and historical figures, Emma wore the clothing á la grecque that would become popular in mainstream France in the coming years.

During the first two decades of the 19th century, fashions continued to follow the basic high-waisted empire silhouette, but in other respects, neoclassical influences became progressively diluted.

This period saw the final abandonment of lace, embroidery, and other embellishments from serious men's clothing outside of formalized court dress—it would not reappear except as an affectation of Aesthetic dress in the 1880s and its successor, the "Young Edwardian" look of the 1960s.

The dandy (a man who placed high importance on personal aesthetics and hobbies but wanted to seem totally nonchalant about it) arguably emerged as early as the 1790s.

Around 1805 large lapels that overlapped those of the jacket began to fall out of fashion, as did the 18th-century tradition of wearing the coat unbuttoned, and gradually waistcoats became less visible.

Barbey d'Aurevilly, one of the leading French dandies at the end of the nineteenth century, explained: In Regency London dandyism was a revolt against a different kind of tradition, an expression of distaste for the extravagance and ostentation of the previous generation, and of sympathy with the new mood of democracy.

He also led the move from breeches to snugly tailored pantaloons or trousers, often light-colored for day and dark for the evening, based on working-class clothing adopted by all classes in France in the wake of the Revolution.

Venetia Murray quotes an excerpt from Diary of an Exquisite, from The Hermit in London, 1819: Took four hours to dress; and then it rained; ordered the tilbury and my umbrella, and drove to the fives' court; next to my tailors; put him off after two years tick; no bad fellow that Weston...broke three stay-laces and a buckle, tore the quarter of a pair of shoes, made so thin by O'Shaughnessy, in St. James's Street, that they were light as brown paper; what a pity they were lined with pink satin, and were quite the go; put on a pair of Hoby's; over-did it in perfuming my handkerchief, and had to recommence de novo; could not please myself in tying my cravat; lost three quarters of an hour by that, tore two pairs of kid gloves in putting them hastily on; was obliged to go gently to work with the third; lost another quarter of an hour by this; drove off furiously in my chariot but had to return for my splendid snuff-box, as I knew that I should eclipse the circle by it.

The new styles like the Brutus ("à la Titus") and the Bedford Crop became fashionable and subsequently spread also in other European and European-influenced countries including the United States.

For such reasons, some Victorian history paintings of the Napoleonic wars intentionally avoided depicting accurate women's styles (see example below), Thackeray's illustrations to his book Vanity Fair depicted the women of the 1810s wearing 1840s fashions, and in Charlotte Brontë's 1849 novel Shirley (set in 1811–1812) neo-Grecian fashions are anachronistically relocated to an earlier generation.

Later in the Victorian period, the Regency seemed to retreat to an unthreateningly remote historical distance, and Kate Greenaway and the Artistic Dress movement selectively revived elements of early 19th century fashions.