Browse Items (71 total)

The American and French Revolutions remain emblems of the political and social upheavals taking place during the 1700s. By the century's end, fashions had changed dramatically. This metamorphosis is found most readily in the clothing of the wealthy.…

Full Dress for June 1799This fashion plate for the June 1799 issue of The Lady’s Monthly Museum is labeled “full dress”. It shows two dresses in the Neoclassical style. The 1790s was a transitional period for fashion. The chemise a la reine, first…

Fashionable Undress for July 1799This fashion plate is a single page that once belonged to a bound volume of materials. Originally printed in The Lady’s Monthly Museum, a periodical published in London, England from 1798 to1832, this image “showed…

Morning Dress for October 1799Mary C. Whitlock, former department chair and founder of URI’s Historic Textile and Costume Collection, found many loose fashion plates in antique shops around Massachusetts and donated them to URI’s collection. These…

Morning Dress for December 1799This fashion plate, dated December 1799, shows morning dress. The figures wear floor-length gowns with short puffy sleeves. The woman on the right wears long blue gloves that match the bow on her headdress and the…

Afternoon Dress for December 1799The American and French Revolutions remain emblems of the political and social upheavals taking place during the 1700s. By the century's end, fashions had changed dramatically. This metamorphosis is found most readily…

Morning Dress for September 1800This fashion plate illustrates morning dress for September 1800. Both figures wear white muslin gowns that are slightly longer in the back. White was a popular color in the early 1800s. The figure on the right wears an…

Evening Dresses for August, 1801Fashion plates were targeted to the elite until rotary printing made them widely available beginning in the 1820s. The artists usually crafted their drawings with a dressmaker, then the fashion plates would be engraved…

The beginning of the nineteenth century featured a radical turn in fashion with the introduction of neoclassical styles. Simplified white chemises with empire waistlines dominated the streets of London, where this fashion plate was printed. Marie…

This fashion plate from The Lady’s Museum illustrates two evening dresses for February 1803. While the two ensembles are different, both begin with a short sleeved white dress with an empire waist. The figure on the lefts wears a Regency open robe in…