Federalist \u0026 Regency Costume: 1790-1819 by Robert L. Shep

Federalist \u0026 Regency Costume: 1790-1819 Reviews

• 
  Alessandra

  This book is a hoot. Some reprints of tailors' manuals include brain-liquefyingly dull page after page of abstruse mathematical calculations. Not this one. This book includes gossip, anecdotes, advice, and some reprints of circa. 1800 fashion magazines.
  
  What it will not do is teach you how to make the clothes. Although patterns are included, they are not labeled, measured, or gridded in any way. You would have to be a really experienced tailor and pattern drafter to take this book and just make clothes from it.
  
  What this book is is a reprint of The Taylor's Complete Guide; Or, A Comprehensive Analysis of BEAUTY and ELEGANCE in DRESS, Containing Rules for cutting out GARMENTS OF EVERY KIND ... etc. etc. The title takes up a whole page. The author is given as "a Society of ADEPTS in the PROFESSION" and it was published in London in 1796. The book is snide, snippy, gossipy and superior, so kind of entertaining on its own.
  
  It also includes The Taylor's Instructor ... (also a very long title), a completely bald-faced pirated version of the above book printed in Philadelphia in 1809 with almost the exact same text, but different pattern plates. The American book also contains a few extra chapters on coats and uniforms.
  
  There are also reprinted a few men's and ladies' fashion magazines from 1796 to 1808. They are mostly elaborate, written descriptions of outfits, but there are some pictures, too.
  
  I felt especially sorry for Her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales, who had to wear her Napoleonic high-waisted gown over a pair of giant court side hoop skirts, as was required for the most formal dress at the time. The hoop skirt is right under her armpits, and looks extraordinarily uncomfortable.