Fashion in the Time of Jane Austen (Shire Library)

The broader Regency period 1795-1820 stands alone as an incredible moment in fashion history unlike anything that went before or after. It was the most naked period since Ancient Greece and before the 1960s, and for the first time England became a fashion influence, especially for menswear, and became the toast of Paris. With the ancient regime deposed, court dress became secondary and the season by season flux of fashion as we know it came into being, aided and abetted by the proliferation of new ladies' magazines. Such an age of revolution and innovation inspired a flood of fashions taking influence from everything including the newly discovered treasures of the ancient world, to radical new ideas like democracy. It was an era of contradiction immortalized by Jane Austen, who adeptly used the newfound diversity of fashion to enliven her characters, Wickham's military splendor, Mr. Darcy's understated elegance, and Miss Tilney's romantic fixation with white muslin.

Jane Austen's world was revolutionary in every sense. The American colonies, then France, overthrew their kings and established republics. Such egalitarian ideals were also reflected in the fashions of the period, which adopted designs inspired by the period of classical democracy: light, flowing and diaphanous. For the first twenty years of the the nineteenth century women could discard corsets and wear less restrictive, more simplistic muslin gowns, emphasising the bust and creating an empire silhouette: it would be the 1920s before another such fashion revolution took hold. Austen used the diversities of fashion to enliven her characters: Wickham's military splendour; Mr Darcy's understated elegance; and Miss Tilney's romantic fixation with white muslin. Sarah Jane Downing explains fashion in this romantic period, how it was shaped by the cultural ideals of the time, and how London briefly usurped Paris as the epicentre of the fashion world.

The broader Regency period 1795 to 1820, stands alone as an incredible moment in fashion history, unlike anything that went before it. For the first time England became a fashion influence, especially for menswear, and became the toast of Paris, as court dress became secondary to the season-by-season flux of fashion as we know it today. Sarah Jane Downing explores the fashion revolution and the innovation that inspired a flood of fashions taking influence from far afield. It was an era of contradiction immortalised by Jane Austen, who adeptly used the new-found diversity of fashion to enliven her characters: Wickham's military splendour; Mr Darcy's understated elegance; and Miss Tilney's romantic fixation with white muslin.