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1/23 I want to start off this thread about men’s fashions in the Regency period by pointing out that I am talking specifically about upper class men’s fashions c. 1780-1820 in France and England and specifically London and Paris…
2/23 … as there were regional variations to all men’s fashion in the period (ex William Bradford’s 1808-9 “Sketches of the Country, character, and Costume, in Portugal and Spain.” purl.pt/23417)
3/23 And laboring/ common men’s fashion didn’t change pre-1780 and post-1810 except in terms of hairstyle. A French shepherd was never going to wear colorful silk brocade... not just because of the cost, but because of French sumptuary laws.
4/23 Though the heyday of sumptuary laws had passed by the 1780s, they were still tied into the feudal structure. In 1789 when Louis XVI called the National Assembly to order, the three orders (Clergy, Aristocracy, Third Estate) were required to wear different costumes.
5/23 As Lynn Hunt writes in her essay, “Freedom of Dress in Revolutionary France,” in “Feminism and the Body,” ed. Londa L. Schiebiner: “the clergy wore clerical costumes reflective of rank; the nobility wore hats with white feathers and clothing adorned by lace and gold...
6/23 “... and the deputies of the Third Estate wore the sober black and three-corner hats of the magistrature... these prescriptions revived the spirit if not the letter of sumptuary laws and instantly politicized the question of dress.” Dress became VERY politicized.
7/23 It led to what J.C Flugel calls “the Great Masculine Renunciation,” where “men gave up their right to all the brighter, gayer, more elaborate and more varied forms of ornamentation” (bit.ly/2U7r2qd).
8/23 This was a rejection of feudalism (as embodied by the gold lace, silk brocade, red heeled shoes etc of pre-1789 aristocratic mens' fashion). To paraphrase Lynn Hunt, all bodies, and not the king’s, were now the body politic and all clothing the body ought to reflect that.
9/23 (I won’t get into the sartorial and legislative fights over who got to wear tricolor cockades, but distinctions in dress were now IDEALLY based on utility and republican virtue- ie Saint-Just suggested injured veterans wear gold stars where they were injured, as per Hunt.)
10/23 After the French Republic was established, the French populace began to look back to the Roman Republic for inspiration in laws and fashion, which led to men’s short hair in crops a la Titus or a la Brutus.
11/23 Wig/ hair powdering was also an abandoned sign of aristocratic decadence, especially since France was still dealing with famine and bread shortage-- and flour couldn’t be spared for hair powder.
12/23 In England, short, unpowdered hair become popular… because of governmental taxation, interestingly enough. Pitt the Younger’s 1795 tax on hair powder made it inconveniently expensive to powder and people left off using it.
13/23 Also during this time period was British colonial expansion and the ongoing French Revolutionary/ Napoleonic Wars. Enormous numbers of British men were mobilized to war. Sir Arthur Wellesley (later the Duke of Wellington) took 9,000 men to Portugal in 1808, for example…
14/23 … and as per Elizabeth Longford’s biography, “Wellington: The Years of the Sword,” Wellington ordered all soldiers to crop their hair for hygienic reasons, i.e. to stop the spread of lice, and for easier maintenance in hot Portugal and Spain.
15/23 The switch in British clothing style was, I think, in part because France still set the fashions, but mostly because of the increased militarism of the period.
16/23 British national identity came to rely on and be defined by military conflicts abroad and I think this is reflected in the tailoring of men’s fashions in the time period, esp. in the trousers or breeches and boots and the high-collared cut of men's coats.
17/23 Now Brummel was PART of this move towards a soberer style of dress but to claim he and other Regency dandies caused the death of more interesting/more expressive men’s fashion is to misread the impact of the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars on this period.
18/23 It is also important to point out that dandyism wasn’t a static movement. It evolved in response to prevailing social, political, and economic trends with, at its heart, the idea that men should be able to wear beautiful clothes.
19/23 By 1863, for example, you have Baudelaire's famous essay, “The Dandy,” and his summation of dandyism as “the burning desire to create a personal form of originality, within the external limits of social conventions.” dandyism.net/baudelaires-th…
20/23 It was NOT about adhering to socially defined masculinity-- it was, in fact, a late 19th century response in defense of art and originality against the mechanization and consumerism brought on by the Industrial Revolution.
21/23 I don’t know enough about the Decadent/ Aesthetic movement to comment on its links to dandyism but it is important to note that the idea of art for art’s sake and the value of creative work was a reaction to the prevailing consumer capitalism. (bl.uk/romantics-and-…)
22/23 Also that Oscar Wilde tied the Decadent/ Aesthetic movement to the socialist movement: marxists.org/reference/arch…
23/23 tl;dr: Men’s fashion in pre-Regency England and France reflected systemic social inequalities enshrined in law, and their fashions during the Regency period were shaped by French Revolutionary ideology, the practicalities of the Napoleonic Wars, & militaristic nationalism.
