] There is a wonderful book titled ~An Elegant Madness, High Society in Regency England~ by Venetia Murray. In one of her chapters , she discuses this very topic.

] “ The year of the Regency period saw a complete revolution in dress for both men and women. As James Laver, the great authority on English fashion, wrote, ’

- Not to rain on you, but Venetia Murray is not the most reliable source for anything regarding the Regency. My problem with her (and her book) is that she mixes up different periods shamelessly, and she also gets so many details about so many people wrong.

As for the influence of the French Revolution, the theory gets a bit complicated. Yes, the French revolutionaries (and those just happening to be in France) consciously wanted a break with the pre-revolutionary way of life, including the fancy (and big) hair, the elaborate costumes. But there were many different fashion trends during the Revolution as far as I can judge. Thanks to this board and my own curiousity, I learned that Robespierre was quite a dandy. The way he dressed was not exactly the way that other revolutionaries dressed. [All right, he got his head lopped off, so his influence on French fashion was limited]. There was the sans-culotte style of dressing, there were the emigres (in England and elsewhere).

I think that the many fashion sites already mentioned this month on this board show some of the examples of the different modes (or waves) of fashion that emerged in the 1790s. It is hard to say (not being a fashion historian) which style grew most popular in the UK, and with which class. There is some evidence to suggest that the latest fashions were not immediately and equally adopted by all the aristocracy and the gentry, let alone the middle class. One example - the trend to leave off wigs and stop powdering hair did not suddenly come into force in one month across classes. There were the "early adopters" (to borrow a term from modern 21st century language), there were the followers, and there were the holdouts. We see examples of all of these in P&P2 and P2.

One factor left out in the original post was the influence of the Evangelicals - along with the growing economic and political power of the middle classes (in which I am including the very wealthy mill-owners, merchants, bankers etc who were not considered part of the aristocracy or the gentry socially).

Although the French Revolution played a part in shaping fashions in the 1790s, along perhaps with the Napoleonic wars (showcasing a taste for all things Egyptian and "Oriental" at one point), I would argue that much of the sobriety in fashions, especially in male fashions, grew out of the social changes taking place within British society. Brummell is interesting, because he is not an aristocrat. He is a member of the middle classes (by birth), who succeeds in imposing his tastes on the upper class males. I will not say that his class/social origins alone determined his style of dressing, but I always wonder why it is that a man from the middle classes ended up persuading upper-class males to dress, well, more like the wealthier members of the middle class.

Several messages in the archives touch on this issue at one point or the other. Those interested might want to search using keywords such as "Evangelical fashion" apart from the earlier posts on fashion during the French Revolution, and on Brummell himself.

Shinjinee
(stepping off her soap box)