La Belle Assemblée, January 1817

[from page 33] A frock of tissue gauze, the ground white, flowered with amber, flounced round the border, and the flounce elegantly surmounted by a wreath of yellow crocusses. Full long sleeves of tulle. The hair dressed in the modern British style, with a full plume of white ostrich feathers tipped with amber, and placed rather backward on the summit of the head. Amber necklace in two rows. White satin slippers; white kid gloves; and small white crape fan richly embroidered insilver of a Vandyke pattern.

It is so well known that dancing, from the earliest ages, with persons of all denominations and in all countries, has been esteemed not a only species of polite amusement and recreative pleasure, but also a healthy exercise, so as to require scarcely any further comment to recommend it. Waltzing is a spcies of this amusement; and notwithstanding that it is capable, from the beautiful simplicity of its graceful movements, of affording to its votaries much pleasing and delightful practice, many prejudices have long existed against it, arising [from page 34] from the extravagant manner of performing it peculiar to those countries in which it was till lately so generally practised. By the more immediate and recent extensive communication with the Continent, waltzing has become a prevalent species of amusement in this country; and that it is equally chaste with quadrilles, English country dances, &c. becomes clearly obvious on the perusal of a late publication by Mr. Wilson, Dancing-Master, entitled, "A Description of the correct Method of German and French Waltzing."

[from page 34] Beaver bonnets in the from of the French bonnets, trimmed profusely with satin and feathers, are most worn for walking. The favourite carriage hat is of pink velvet, with an elegant plume of down feathers of the same colour.

[from page 35] Head-dresses consist chiefly of toques, cornettes, and dress hats. The Albion cap claims, at present, such a decided pre-eminence that few of the former are seen, for it suits every age and almost every kind of contenance. [ . . . ]

The favourite colours are coquelicot, slate, blue, and holly green.

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