] all the white dresses used in the adaptations. Would they really have worn white so often for everyday clothes, given how muddy everywhere must have been before paved/tarmaced roads?

There were no man made fabrics or mechanised fabric dying proceses in those days. Today, we take for granted that every colour under the sun is available as a fashion choice, but it wasn't always so. All that was available in JA's time were natural fabrics like linens, cottons, silk and their derivatives. As the natural colour of these fabrics was pretty pale, it was more common as not, for young ladies to wear paler colours. Dyes themselves were very expensive and it was a complicated process to get a dress to look as bright ( or downright garish if you ask me ) as Caroline Bingleys were, for example. To her, money is no object and the rich colours of her dresses are just as much a status symbol as her heavy gold jewelry is. Not every woman had that luxury.

I agree with you as to the white dresses getting dirty in the days of unpaved roads. However, ladies didn't have the wear and tear on their clothes that we do today. They didn't go to work, or to the shopping mall or to gas station or to the supermarket etc etc so their opportunities for getting dirty were less. Also there was far less pollution 200 years ago. There were no cars, buses, trains, smog, cigarette smoke, pollution from airports, power plants and city dumps. I'd imgine keeping your clothes clean then, would be far easier than it is now.

Although, once they DID get dirty, all my sympathy lies with the poor maids who had to do the laundry in the days before washing machines.....yikes...am shuddering in horror...LOL !!!