This publication features a comprehensive study of woman's fashion from the Post-War Woman of 1815 through the dress of 1914. 

*** Detailing the height of British aristocratic fashion. ***

Packed with detailed descriptions of costume and period fashion... Delightful stories... A rare gem.

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THE PERFECT LADY
C. WILLETT CUNNINGTON

Honorary Advisor to the Gallery of English Costume, Manchester.
By the same author: Feminine Attitudes in the Nineteenth Century, Englishwoman's Clothing in the 
Nineteenth Century, and Why Women Wear Clothes.
Copyright 1948

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Profusely illustrated with beautiful hand illustrations in black and white and 16 in color by Alfred Eris.

The illustrations in color are of costumes in the Cunnington Collection at Platt Hall, Manchester.   "The author is greatly indebted to Miss Howroyd, at that time in charge of the Gallery of English Costume at Platt Hall, for her painstaking work in dressing the mannequins to present an accurate reproduction of the period illustrated." 

See and read about beauty through the ages.  A must have for those interested in period fashions, re-enactments and fashion design.

"Under the skirt there would be a white cambric petticoat, the border beautifully embroidered in broderie
anglaise. Under that, a plain white petticoat of longcloth. Under that a plain flannel petticoat and under that
another. A still deeper layer would be a short stiff petticoat of woven horsehair material known as 'crinoline'; this
preserved the essential shape of the whole mass, its hem being some six feet round. . . . Beneath it were longcloth
drawers reaching below the knees and severely austere; and beneath them we arrive at the chemise, which also
reaches the knees and is some eight feet round the hem. Bustles in the shape of crescentic pads stuffed
with horsehair surrounded the back and sides of the waist to throw the skirt well out over the hips .... Under
the bodice was worn a camisole, a novelty introduced early in the Forties to protect the dress from the stays.

These were formidable and described by a contemporary as 'extending not only over the bosom but also all over
the abdomen and back down to the hips, besides being garnished with whalebone to say nothing of an immense
wooden, metal or whalebone busk passing in front from the top of the stays to the bottom. . . .' Tight lacing was an essential."

It was not permissible-indeed it was not possible-for the Perfect Lady to stoop to conquer. The astonishing
creature, now nearing the height of her splendor, would have been immeasurably shocked to hear her structure so
revealed. But after a hundred years it is perhaps permissible. to dissect her, and from Dr. Cunnington's incomparable
knowledge and acute insight, and Mr. Eris's masterly re-creation in color of the living being, emerges
an entrancing picture of the greatest age of English costume, of which the Perfect Lady was the full flower.

TABLE OF CONTENTS:
 
1815-1830 ... The Imperfect Lady

"THE WAR IS OVER!" News of the great victory has appeared in The Times of Thursday, 22nd June, and she has a copy in her hand as she dashes in to announce - but stay!  She must be introduced in costume.

She is dressed in the mode of the day, wearing a Leghorn bonnet beribboned in green, its shape inspired now doubt by the military; a crimson velvet pelisse with wide vandyked collar and high waistband; this covers a dress of white English muslin sprigged in pink with a couple of small scalloped flounces above the hem.  The waistline has soared so that the dress is almost all skirt.  In a word she is in the height of fashion, for the year is - 1815.  But she is more than just a post-war woman now; she is a new social phenomenon, destined in the next generation to become the Perfect Lady...

1831-1851 ... The Delicate Form

FASHIONS APPEAR TO COME IN like a rising tide, and it is noticeable that the rise is more gradual than the subsequent ebb. The desire to express some widespread feeling or mass-impulse gradually grows so strong that the symbol of it which Fashion represents becomes more and more exaggerated, until at last satiety is reached. Extremes of Fashion are "sartorial hysteria," and when the impulse has become exhausted it is natural that that particular mode of expression should rapidly disappear.

But the career of a Fashion may also be affected by sudden social changes. If, for example, the fashionable world abruptly becomes less exclusive and a new stratum of society, whose tastes and inclinations have now to be catered for, is admitted into the charmed circle, they may swamp the narrow confines which had previously dictated the styles in vogue.

Both of these phenomena were illustrated in the modes which marked the period between the end of the reign of George IV (1830) and the Great Exhibition of 185I. As we shall see, the peculiar phase of florid inflation,  which had risen to such heights by 1830, abruptly subsided in 1836 and an entirely new spirit inspired the fashions of the ensuing fifteen years. To describe this as "Early Victorian" is misleading; it began before Queen Victoria came to the throne. Actually it marked a stage of social growth affecting a new class to which Fashion had become vitally important. A bourgeois revolution had taken place (marked politically by the Reform Act of '32) when the Middle Class-not Queen Victoria-began to reign.

1852-1865 ... The Architecture of Perfection

THE PERIOD COVERED IN THIS CHAPTER, from 1852 to 1865, is one of the most remarkable in the history of Englishwomen's costume; indeed one might say, in the history of Englishwomen themselves. It marked the first practical stage in physical and mental emancipation.

In the past there had been times when singular fashions had obsessed a small and select group, but now the rule of Fashion was far-flung. Railways, increasing numbers of ladies' magazines giving the latest news from the fashion front, and the greater mingling of the various classes-all these caused every new mode to become rapidly familiar throughout the land.

In the cities the larger drapers' shops began to acquire some of the features of a modern "store," in that they catered for a wide range of customers; there one could at least inspect the most expensive models and perhaps buy a cheaper copy.

All this meant that every new fashion appeared as if by magic all over the country in various grades of quality and price. That this was, in fact, the case we are able to ascertain by a simple test. If we examine old photograph albums we discover that we can date almost to a year dresses worn by women who were obviously of what were called the "middling classes." We see dated photographs showing costume details of their precise year. Obviously fashions spread almost as quickly and widely as any other piece of important news.

1866-1880 ... Those Fascinating Undulations

THE PERIOD FROM 1866 TO 1880 was the "golden age" of the dressmakers' art. Never before or since has the Englishwoman's costume been so complex, reaching a degree which defied even the professional fashion journalist to describe. In a technical sense it seems as though the costumier was indulging in sheer bravura display, inventing new difficulties in order to show her skill in overcoming them. The moment was auspicious. Materials had reached a high level of excellence. Until the wave of prosperity began to decline, late in the Seventies, the demand for fine clothes was wider than ever and extravagance in dress had become habitual among the class represented by the Perfect Lady.

The habit seemed to her the only effective way of demonstrating her social position and of repelling the encroachments of democracy. At the same time expensive dressing might, it was hoped, curb the inclination of those dreadful "emancipated" creatures who threatened to abandon the prerogative of their sex, the art of "dress-attraction." The strategy of Fashion during this phase may be summarized as-expensive glamour. This meant more than mere physical charm, the property of all classes; this must be raised by the dressmaker's art to levels out of reach of the small purse.

1881-1887 ... The Armour of Prudery

THE MODERN WOMAN WOULD PROBABLY FIND HERSELF less in sympathy with, and therefore less able to understand, the outlook and fashions of the Eighties than those of any other epoch.

Each phase in the career of the Perfect Lady, up to the turning-point when its decline began, had been clearly expressed in its fashions; the particular social aim of each could hardly have been more patently presented, so that even to-day we can readily appreciate the forms used and their meaning.

Though the luscious curvatures of the late Seventies may be out of touch with modem taste, still they do not perplex us; their former fascination is quite understandable. In fact, the feminine mind with its sympathetic imagination can easily appreciate how effective the fashions of all those epochs must have been, in their day, and this sympathy is revealed when the amusement of "dressing up" in period costume is indulged in. Perhaps

the impressive "crinoline" fashions are the most favored, though others have their admirers; but there is a marked shunning of the modes of the Eighties. No one would select for fancy dress a day costume of that decade. The popular comments, "stuffy." "dowdy," "drab" are applied to modes which to the modern eye seem incomprehensible, almost inhuman in their lack of charm. But it is this very quality which gives those fashions a peculiar interest; unlike those of previous periods they cannot be labeled as the expressions of a single well-marked impulse. One sees in them elements of smartness and dowdiness, sex appeal and a grim prudery, practical utility and futile stuffiness, all in one composition, with mixtures of colors which at one moment look high-spirited, at another like a nervous breakdown. Here are fashions which seem to supply the psychologist with symbols of "conflict" and he is driven to conclude that the modes of the Eighties were, in fact, almost pathological.

1888-1897 ... These Ambiguous Bipeds

THE WINTRY GLOOM WHICH HAD HUNG, as it were, over the fashions of the early and middle Eighties seemed to lift with the first Jubilee and a fresh springlike change became perceptible. Dress materials were " lighter, brighter and smoother," with a greater use of silk and in summer cotton and embroidered muslins. The Jubilee year was a splash of color. "Red jerseys, red coats and cloaks, red hose, petticoats, hats, bonnets and muffs conduce to brighten up the winter somberness." Such a display had not been seen for years.

The next year introduced a remarkable change of style, or rather a revival of an old mode, remarkable because it was one of those very rare fashions attributable to the example of a single person, in this case Sarah Bernhardt. In La Tosca she astonished the fashionable world by her (stay-less) Directoire and Empire dresses, and these were copied with avidity by the Perfect Lady. "

At the end of '88 it was remarked "the draped skirts of a year ago have entirely disappeared, and day by day the modes of the Directoire, Consulate and Empire are gaining ground. We disliked them at first, but we have reconciled ourselves by degrees to the long redingotes with their huge revers and pockets, the skimpy, perfectly plain skirts. What we cannot bring ourselves to is the high waist."

1898-1910 ... The Soft Flowing Silhouette

"IT IS EVIDENT TO EVERY OBSERVER of current events that the whole question of marriage is passing through a period of severe criticism." The marriage rate was falling and the average age for marriage had risen to twenty-four and a half.

Feminine fashions instinctively attempted to rectify these deplorable facts, and the event of the Diamond Jubilee year was "the return of the figure," we are told, together with "the seamless skirt, the tightly swathed bodice and glove like sleeve, the longer-waisted rigid stays and soft unstarched petticoats; the skirt tight-fitting round the hips made up the circular form; with a tight-fitting coat and skirt the woman of fashion may look a miracle of curves and grace."

A return to curves was nothing new; what was new, however, was the addition of long elliptical concave curves in the skirt to contrast with the convexities of Nature, reinforced by art. The Perfect Lady was entering that St. Martin's summer of the dressmaker's art, the great illusion of the Edwardian period. Her weapons were curves, chiffon and lingerie: with these she must surely be invincible.

"Everything is reaching the highest stage of perfection in dress ... Every month skirts grow tighter round the hips; walking has become an impossibility and a sort of gliding motion has become the fashionable gait."

1910-1914 ... The Passing of the Perfect Lady

THE CHANGE OF STYLE STARTING IN 1910 was a fundamental one. Hitherto, as we have seen, the basic structure of feminine costume had been for nearly a century composed of angles and curves. Even in the narrow dresses of the Regency period the vertical emphasis had become modified by the time the Perfect Lady was beginning to make her appearance; the lines of the skirt were then, in fact, slanting slightly outwards as they descended from the high waist. But now in 1910 a decisively vertical line became established and the costume with its high waistband presented a diagram of the letter "H," almost the same as the masculine; and as might be expected it was most marked in the tailor-made costume for day wear.

Although at the time the new style was described as a combination of Directoire and Empire, its essential spirit was entirely novel. One must regard it as an unconscious but significant approach towards the masculine, with clean-cut outline, emphasis on the upright, and absence of curves and superfluous fripperies. It gave to woman an air of competence, as though she had at last discovered a new aim in life.

This new conception of dress, which has distinguished her day costume ever since, preceded the Great War by some four years and therefore cannot be attributed to that event; but it did coincide with that phase of social readjustment of which the aggressive Suffragette Movement was a prominent symptom. Naturally enough, this revolution in feminine costume  did not progress unhampered by traditional bias. For a time at least those incisive lines were toned down by additions such as the tunic, but it is significant that these were mainly angular in effect and the use of curves was relegated more and more to the evening dress, which has always cultivated "appeal" to a greater degree than the day.

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ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOR:

The Post-War Woman ~ A day dress of 1815

The More Romantic Inspiration ~ Two evening dresses, 1820-21

Horses Shied and Dogs Barked ~ A summer day dress, 1828

The Burnished Dove ~ Three dresses of the Thirties

Early English ~ Ball dress, 1840

Pattern of Refinement

The Scaffolding of Perfection

Red For Danger?

Be Good, Sweet Maids...

Loops and Contours

Young Ladies Must Be Ever on Their Guard

Effectively Concealing the Natural Curves

The Leg-of-Mutton Sleeve ~ Afternoon dresses, adult and child 1895

Fin De Siecle ~ Two evening dresses, 1896-98

The Topmost Pinnacle ~ Court dress, 1901

The Illusion is Broken ~ Afternoon dress, 1908

* Nineteenth Century Clothing~Camisole~Hoops~Vtg Fashion *