By Devoney Looser, Arizona State University
A working knowledge of 19th century fashion deepens any reading of Jane Austen’s books. Her fiction shows a particular skepticism toward excess, luxury products, and the emerging trappings of consumer culture. In Austen’s fiction, characters who take a great interest in dress and fashion are often subject to mockery and criticism.
Frivolity of Fashionable Clothing
A love of what’s called finery—fine things, especially in clothing—is often a sign of shallowness for a character in an Austen novel. But when you look more closely, Austen’s fiction draws a line between an interest in and an obsession with fashion. Fashion in moderation is rarely shown to be a problem.
The problem, as Northanger Abbey’s narrator puts it, is that, “Dress is at all times a frivolous distinction”. Furthermore, “Excessive solicitude about it often destroys its own aim.”
These lines suggest Austen’s light touch toward the frivolity of fashionable clothing. The harder you try to distinguish yourself by dressing fashionably, the narrator suggests, the less likely you are to achieve your goal.
This article comes directly from content in the video series The Life and Works of Jane Austen. Watch it now, on Wondrium.
Was Austen Anti-fashion?
Persuasion describes the empty-headed, trend-conscious type as “a mere pretty, silly, expensive, fashionable woman” with “nothing to report but of lace and finery”.
In Pride and Prejudice, there’s the flirtatious Lydia Bennet, who has an outsized interest in soldiers, shopping, and bonnets. Lydia’s impulsivity and poor judgment follows her life choices from bonnets to men.
But the most notable example in Austen’s novels of an unhealthy interest in fashion might be Northanger Abbey’s wealthy matron-chaperone, Mrs. Allen. She has a comically obsessive love of dress or clothing. Although she’s said to have a “harmless delight in being fine”, she’s also ridiculous. Mrs. Allen takes so long to get dressed that she makes the young heroine, Catherine, late to the ball. Then, at the ball, all Mrs. Allen can talk about is whether her dress or headwear has been preserved from damage. Poor Catherine ends up doing more listening to her chaperone’s fashion anxieties than she does dancing.
One might think from these examples that Austen was anti-fashion or that she took little interest in dress. However, that’s actually not the case. We know from her letters that she had an extensive, personal interest in clothing.
Women Owned Fewer Pieces of Clothing
Most people—except for the fabulously rich—had relatively few pieces of clothing. A middle-class woman would have owned a few dresses and a modest number of pieces of nightwear and underclothing. Clothing was not, by and large, mass produced. Increasingly, what was called ‘ready-made’ clothing was available for sale, but garments were traditionally made to a person’s specific measurements and precise specifications. Clothing was created by dressmakers, called mantua makers. Some made house calls to take measurements for wealthy customers.
Clothing could also be sewn at home, by a family itself or with the help of servants, if it had hired them. To make a garment at home, cloth needed to be purchased. That, too, was an expensive thing. It was done at what was called a linen draper’s shop. A haberdasher sold accessories like buttons, lace, and ribbons, and a milliner dealt in ladies dresses and hats, especially in decorating them.
Repurposing of Clothes
Cloth was so dear a thing that pieces of it were regularly repurposed. Dresses may be imagined in three parts—bodice, skirt, and sleeves, with each part being changeable. So, one could remake the look of a dress by changing only its sleeves. Or one could turn one part of a dress into another item of clothing, so that a dress might become a jacket.
A piece of clothing could also be transformed from one person’s garment into another’s. For example, a man’s wool coat could become a women’s Spencer jacket. Children’s clothing could be made from a mother’s old coat. This sort of fashionable clothing recycling and remaking was the norm in Austen’s time.
As these examples suggest, fabric was longer lasting and durable. And even when cloth began to wear out, it could be turned. By making the back-facing side into the front-facing side, an old piece of cloth could seem newly made. And by lining, or relining, the cloth, it was protected from wear on the skin-facing side. That, too, made turning cloth a more feasible thing.
Fitted Clothes a Sign of Wealth
When we use the word threadbare today, we might not think about it in literal terms. But in Austen’s day, it was common to wear something out, to wear it until its threads were worn thin. One could draw conclusions about someone’s wealth by the wear and tear shown in their clothing.
Because clothing was so expensive, women of means regularly made clothing for the poor as a charitable act. And sometimes, when a servant was first hired, the new job came not only with a small salary but with a new set of clothing. During employment, a servant’s receiving hand-me-down clothes from a master or mistress was a welcomed gift. This also meant the clothing of the poor was more likely to be ill-fitting. A person’s wealth was also possible to surmise by how well their clothes fit.
Common Questions about Regency Fashion in Jane Austen’s Novels
Persuasion describes the empty-headed, trend-conscious type as “a mere pretty, silly, expensive, fashionable woman” with “nothing to report but of lace and finery”.
During Jane Austen‘s time, clothing was not mass produced. Increasingly, what was called ‘ready-made’ clothing was available for sale, but garments were traditionally made to a person’s specific measurements and precise specifications. Clothing was created by dressmakers, called mantua makers. Clothing could also be sewn at home, by a family itself or with the help of servants, if it had hired them.
Dresses may be imagined in three parts—bodice, skirt, and sleeves, with each part being changeable. Repurposing clothes was the norm. So, one could remake the look of a dress by changing only its sleeves. Or one could turn one part of a dress into another item of clothing, so that a dress could become a jacket.
