Persuasion: Fashion in the Age of Jane Austen

Inquiring Reader: Emma, the author of this post, lives in Melbourne, Australia. After she interviewed me for a class assignment, I asked her if she would give us her impressions of the the fabulous fashion show at the National Gallery of Victoria. Happily, she said yes. Click here for our original announcement and for more images from the exhibit. Thank you for sending us your thoughts, Emma. You almost make us feel as if we'd been there. Vic

The National Gallery of Victoria has a permanent space for textile exhibits that is often overlooked by visitors. So, you can imagine my surprise when I entered the Persuasion space and found it far from empty. There were young children, middle aged couples, elderly couples and a selection of tourists, all gathered in the rooms openly admiring the clothing and documents behind their glass cases.

The collection was set up beautifully in their cases, decorated to become rooms – painted blue, with pianofortes, writing desks and sitting chairs.

It was interesting listening to the thoughts of those around me, with many observing the “heaviness of the walking dress” and the “gorgeous detailing on that white muslin.” Of course every woman in the room stopped to admire the outfit worn by Colin Firth in the BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, no doubt reliving the lake scene.

With so many pieces to choose from I had no idea how I was going to pick one or two to write about, but finally I have settled on the ball and the walking dress.

Having read many ball scenes in Austen’s works it what inevitable that I would love the ball dress. The dress was an empire line, with a skirt that went outwards into a cone shape, and the sleeves were puffed with lace detailing. It was interesting to read the plaque which revealed just how complicated the ball dress actually was – with there being gauze, embroidery with silk floss, lace, satin, piping and some sort of plants vine used in its construction.

And then there was the walking dress, a dress that I’m not sure I’d like to go for a walk in myself. I’d expected something lighter so I was very surprised by the heavy bronze satin dress in the case. It appeared very restrictive – fitted, long tight sleeves – but was incredibly beautiful and well made.

The exhibit closes at the gallery on November 8, 2009. I encourage anyone that can make it to go. It’s free of charge and definitely a collection not be to missed. Click here for an audio tour of the exhibit.

More links to images:

• Link to images of jewelry from the show
• All things Austen
• Carriage dress
• Style Melbourne
• Melbourne on Melbourne
• August Street: Persuasion - with pictures of exhibit
• Vogue.com
• Jane Austen Pod Novel: See an image of the museum

Posted by Vic, Jane Austen's World

Persuasion: Fashion in the Age of Austen

This week the National Gallery of Victoria in Australia will feature a fashion show that I would give my eyeteeth to see - Persuasion: Fashion in the Age of Jane Austen, which will be shown in the Myer Fashion and Textiles Gallery and will run from May 22 to November 8th. Best of all, the show is free to the public. The exhibit will feature over 70 works, largely from the museum collection, and survey the period between1770 and 1830. Prints and drawings, decorative arts and paintings with a focus on English women’s dress from the early 19th century will be shown alongside these fabulous outfits, and key works from other Australian institutions and private collections will also be included. Many of the items in the NGV's holdings were collected in the 1960s and 70s by collectors Anne and Leo Schofield.

Jane Austen's fashionable characters in her novels, like Lucy Steele or Mrs. Allen, were portrayed as being rather silly. "It was not considered proper for anyone to talk endlessly about fashion," said Roger Leong, the NGV's curator of international fashion and textiles. "The characters who do talk at length about clothes are always the most idiotic." Yet Jane wrote about fashionable details in her letters to her family, and as Leong noted, "Austen's witty and perceptive comments about fashion mirrored the complex relationships within English society during her lifetime, especially between different classes and men and women."

Fashion changed dramatically during Jane Austen's lifetime. In 1775, the year of her birth, women wore constricting dresses with corsetry, hoops, or panniers. When Jane was in her 20's, the neoclassical influence had taken over. Women's clothes were high-waisted, streamlined, relatively unembellished, and made with soft muslin or diaphanous cottons. Towards the end of Jane's life in 1817, dresses were once more decorated with tucks, ruffles, and lace. Waists came down, the hour-glass silhouette returned, and stiffer fabrics and silk satins came into vogue again. "The variations of the waistline, upwards from the natural waist and then back again, were a distinctive characteristic of the time, one of the most dynamic periods in fashion," Leong said. The curator also observed that our knowledge of fashion during Jane's era comes largely from period films. He particularly admires "the costumes designed by Jenny Beavan and John Bright in Ang Lee's film Sense and Sensibility, which cited fashions from the 1790s, when Austen was writing the novel, rather than 1811, when it became her first published book."*

While empire dresses were popular for only a short period, they seem less cumbersome and restrictive to our modern eyes than the constricting fashions of the Georgian and Victorian eras. For modern fans, a costume worn by Colin Firth in 1995's Pride and Prejudice will be on display. (Rumor has it that it is a white shirt.)

• Announcement: ABC News
  
• NVG International
• *The Australian

Images:
1. Muslin dress, 1815-16
2. Detail of Pelisse, 1816, silk satin
3. Open robe, 1770
4. Carriage dress, 1830, silk
5. Round gown, 1802

Posted by Vic, Jane Austen's World