Fashion Plate, August 1801
Subject
Illustration
Title
Fashion Plate, August 1801
Date
August 1801
Description
Evening Dresses for August, 1801
Fashion 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 and printed, and finally precisely hand colored. This fashion plate is titled “Evening Dresses for August 1801;” it was printed in London for the Lady’s Monthly Magazine. Another copy is in the Costume and Textile Collection at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The dresses display Neoclassical features with high waistlines and tubular silhouettes. The Neoclassical style that prevailed in women’s fashion in the early nineteenth century was symbolic of the political atmosphere at the time. After the French Revolution, the last thing women wanted was to express opulence and extravagance through their dress. Interest in ancient political philosophies as well as classical antiquity—as a result of the excavations of Pompeii and Herculaneum—contributed to the period’s fixation on Neoclassicism (Franklin 2020). Not only did Neoclassicism prevail in fashion, it was also very admired in all arts and architecture.
References
Fashion Plate, “Evening Dresses for August, 1801” for “Lady's Monthly Magazine.” Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Available at: https://collections.lacma.org/node/252558
Fashion 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 and printed, and finally precisely hand colored. This fashion plate is titled “Evening Dresses for August 1801;” it was printed in London for the Lady’s Monthly Magazine. Another copy is in the Costume and Textile Collection at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The dresses display Neoclassical features with high waistlines and tubular silhouettes. The Neoclassical style that prevailed in women’s fashion in the early nineteenth century was symbolic of the political atmosphere at the time. After the French Revolution, the last thing women wanted was to express opulence and extravagance through their dress. Interest in ancient political philosophies as well as classical antiquity—as a result of the excavations of Pompeii and Herculaneum—contributed to the period’s fixation on Neoclassicism (Franklin 2020). Not only did Neoclassicism prevail in fashion, it was also very admired in all arts and architecture.
References
Fashion Plate, “Evening Dresses for August, 1801” for “Lady's Monthly Magazine.” Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Available at: https://collections.lacma.org/node/252558
Franklin, Harper. (2020, June 25). Fashion History Timeline: 1800-1809. Available at: https://fashionhistory.fitnyc.edu/1800-1809/
Source
Donor: URI Purchase
Identifier
URI 1957.99.12
Contributor
Sophia Joslin
Creator
Wirgman, Hanover Street, Hanover Square
Publisher
Wirgman, Hanover Street, Hanover Square
Collection
Citation
Wirgman, Hanover Street, Hanover Square, “Fashion Plate, August 1801,” Historic Textile and Costume Collection, accessed April 19, 2024, https://uritextilecollection.omeka.net/items/show/405.