Fashion Plate, June 1824
Fashionable Walking & Ball Dresses for June 1824

Fashion plates are generalized portraits that depict the style of clothes that a dressmaker, store, or tailor can manufacture or supply. They can also show how various materials can be used to make garments. These illustrations played a substantial role in introducing the idea of marketing fashion to a large audience (Nevinson, 1967). The early inspiration of fashion plates came about in the late seventeenth and the early eighteenth century with portrait pictures that, differing from before, showed the subject’s identity not by their features but by their dress. For example, the journal Mercure Galant, introduced in the seventeenth century, included images of the newest styles, and detailed where they could be bought (McCourt, 2021).

Fashion plates were becoming fully developed in the nineteenth century when the middle class was expanding (Wilson). After the innovations in communication and transportation that developed during this time, interest in foreign fashions, accessories, and hairstyles increased. As more people began to read, magazines partly or completely dedicated to fashion thrived and were read widely by the middle class (Calishpere).

Fashion plates being so accessible contributed to the rapid fashion changes of the nineteenth century. Also, with fashion changing so fast, women relied on fashion plates to show them up-to-date styles and what was appropriate for certain times of day and occasions (Ingham). However, fashion plates were not just for women. There were fashion plates depicting men’s dress as well.

Ladies' magazines, from which this fashion plate was taken, also rose in popularity and featured fashion plates, gossip, embroidery patterns, stories, and more. This fashion plate is from the Ladies’ Monthly Museum, an English monthly women’s magazine published from 1798 to 1832. This specific fashion plate was published in June of 1824. The Los Angeles Public Library has a copy, and the University of California posted a picture and description of  on their website called Calisphere (Calisphere). 

The 1820s were a period of change in women’s fashion that moved from the Neoclassical Style to the Romantic Style. The Romantic movement influenced not just fashion but also many parts of society. Romanticism was prevalent in the 1820s with a stress on imagination, emotion, individualism, and the past. The Romantic movement also dispelled with Neoclassical geometric lines and a monochromatic palette (Franklin, 2020).

The woman on the left is wearing a white floor-length dress with a wide scooped neckline and short cap sleeves. Described as "a fashionable ball dress", the dress has an empire waistline with short puff sleeves. It is decorated across the bodice, sleeves and along the hem with ruffles and applied fabric details. Accessories include long gloves that end at the elbow, flat slippers, a necklace, and a ribbon or fabric headpiece.

The woman on the right is wearing a long blue, floor length dress, with long sleeves that puff out at her shoulders, and a low empire waistline as well. The dress resembles a coat dress popular at the time known as a pelisse. The white fichu around her neck was popular in the 1820s. Her accessories include a white bonnet decorated with plaid and a feather, yellow gloves, and a green parasol (Calisphere). This "fashionable walking dress" is decorated with applied matching trim around the hem, sleeve cuffs and across the bodice. Each dress was "Invented by Miss Pierpont [on] Edward Street, Portman Square."

Throughout the 1820s, there was a downward shift from empire waist to a natural waist. By looking at the dresses of both women in the fashion plate, one can see the waistline starting to move down from the empire waist. One can also see the sleeves starting to widen around the shoulders, although sleeves got much wider by the end of the decade. The wide bonnet worn by the lady on the right forms a halo around her face in keeping with the fashions of the early 1820s. The curls around the temples of the lady on the left are also in line with the styles of the time. As we discussed in class, fabric and trims were becoming increasingly decorative especially the trim at the hem of dresses which we can see in this fashion plate (Welters, 2023). This fashion plate is a good example of the styles of the early 1820s.

References

Calisphere Staff. (n.d.). Lady’s Monthly Museum. Los Angeles. Retrieved November 14, 2023. https://calisphere.org/item/4049f8eb502f20d6628a997d94b6f5c0/

Franklin, H. (2020, May 27). 1820-1829. Fashion History Timeline. https://fashionhistory.fitnyc.edu/1820-1829.

Ingham, E. (n.d.). Fashion Plates Introduction. National Portrait Gallery. https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/research/new-research-on-the-collection/fashionplates/fashion-plates-introduction.

McCourt , E. (2021, January 8). A Brief History of the Fashion Plate. Maryland Center for History and Culture. https://www.mdhistory.org/a-brief-history-of-the-fashion-plate/

Nevinson , J. L. (1967). In Origin and Early History Of the Fashion Plate (pp. 68–68). essay, Smithsonian Press.