Le Beau Monde, or Literary and Fashionable Magazine, 1806-1810

The chilling blasts of winter hastening to supersede the mild freshness of the autumnal evenings, and the Steyne, the Parade, and the hoarse-resounding [sic] Beach, with soon be deserted for the Opera, the ball-room, or the cheerful domestic fire-side. The almost universality of half-dress, so convenient and proper at a watering-place, will therefore, soon be laid aside for the more dashing and eccentric elegancies of fashion; and the purveyors of the different articles of female ornament, for we cannot call it attire, are all on the qui vive to bring out the newest thing.

The pelisse of scarlet cloth, and the velvet mantle, of course, are the most conspicious articles for winter wear, in order to give the appearance of warmth, if they do not produce its reality; and as last winter they were worn on one shoulder, we may fairly expect, for the coming season, that it will be sufficient to carry them on the arm, unless some dashing female should wrap her fur cloak round the broad shoulders of her attendant footman in order to keep herself warm by proxy ....

[from page 244] Those who are partial to furs as a trimming, or merely for shew, will adopt the Northern costume, and with them the Ladpland Jacket will have its day. This consists of a close- bodied dress of ruby-coloured or scarlet superfine cloth, or sarsnet, reaching half way to the knees, with a high open collar, and trimmed all round with the richest spoils of Siberia.--It may be worn over a morning dress of any appropriate colour, or contrast, sumounted with a white tippet, and accompanied, or not, by a muff, according to the fancy of the wearer ....

In full dress, nothing very striking is on the tapis, nor will the regulators of the mode produce any thing very dashing until the birth-day, as the late meeting of Parliament will operate rather as a check on an early opening of the fashionable campaign.

[from page 299] ... Our belles, in the course of a few short weeks, have been gipsies, witches, Paissannes, Grecian statues, and Egyptian mummies; in short, so often has Variety herself been varied, that nothing is left for Fashion but a bizarre union of incongruities, to produce the harmony of contrast; or, by the whimsicality of contrast, to excite wonder and surprize ...

To Return to the Le Beau Monde Page

To Return to the Regency Publications Page

To Return to the Regency Fashion Page

To Return to the Regency Page