Fashion Through History: Episode 2 – Georgians

[Music] foreign [Music] brought to you by English Heritage I am fashion historian Dr sarana Dyer and today I'm here at Kenwood near Hampstead Heath in London during the Georgian period Kenwood was home to a number of individuals including William Murray the first Earl of Mansfield and Dido Elizabeth Bell who you might know from the film Bell we'll be looking at some of the fashions that Dido Bell might have worn during her time at Kenwood as well as those of her famous fashion contemporary Georgiana Cavendish Duchess of Devonshire we'll be joined by Louise cooling English Heritage curator who will be telling us a little bit more about life in Georgian society and Dido Bell and Georgiana cavendish's places within it so how did Dido Bell come here to Kenwood so Dido was born probably in around 1761 probably in the Caribbean she was the daughter of a young enslaved African girl named Maria Bell and a royal naval officer Captain Sir John Lindsay we don't know a huge amount about Dido's early life but we do know that when she was around five years old her father brought Dido and her mother to England and he placed five-year-old Idol into the care of his aunt and uncle Lord and Lady Mansfield here at Kenwood to be raised alongside her cousin Lady Elizabeth Murray who was already here [Music] Shanice is wearing our first look which is based upon the famous portrait of dido Belle and Elizabeth so this gown is known as the Sultana in the 18th century it's based upon the Exotic styles that were imported from places like Istanbul and turkey and women like Mary Worley Montague made them really popular we see a lot of women wearing these styles of gowns in portraits from the 1740s onwards but it's quite interesting that Elizabeth and Dido are presented in such a contrasting way in this painting perhaps indicating the differences in their status and backgrounds so can you tell us a little bit more about Dido Belle's relationship with her family yeah absolutely so Dido was raised as a lady she was very much part of the family but perhaps a much loved if poor relation so she was taught to read and write play music she also superintended the dairy here at Kenwood which was a very fashionable Pastime for aristocratic ladies in the 18th century so Shanice shall we get you dressed into something a little more formal yeah [Music] so let's start by taking off your Sultana underneath your Sultana you're wearing a set of stays these were a really important part of every 18th century woman's wardrobe they are boned with something called baleen which is whale bone but it actually comes from the mouth of a whale and is a very flexible material so they're not quite as uncomfortable as they might look but they give this fabulous conical silhouette which is really epitomizing that 18th century style so the next garment we're going to put on you are these panniers so you'll see that you're already wearing Pockets so this is where the Lucy Locket lost her pocket nursery rhyme comes from because they're these tie on pockets and then over the top of those you have even more storage space in your panniers [Music] so these are made from linen and they are reinforced with cane strips that hold out this shape so the next garment is your petticoat so this just pops on over your head and dive into it and then it ties at the front and then at the back so you can see these slits on the side means that you still have access to your pockets and your panniers underneath so the next garment is your stomacher so this pins onto the front stays [Music] and you could interchange the stomachers that you wore with different outfits so you could have a matching stomacher like this one or you could have a nice embroidered contrasting stomacher and we even sometimes see dresses that have multiple matching stomachers made out of the same fabric but with different Trims on so there's some variety without having lots of different dresses and then finally the gown so the Gown just slips on over the top [Music] it has a fitted lining that fits to the body but then has the beautiful flowing pleats at the back and again this just pins on so that's the finished outfit is this something that you would normally wear Shanice uh not normally but I do actually quite like it I love the color it's beautiful so yeah maybe I'll start wearing it on a Saturday night oh [Music] so now that you've had a chance to wear the dress Shanice can you tell us a little bit about how it feels yeah it feels pretty comfortable to wear I can imagine if you're wearing the stay every day that can be a bit uncomfortable but just for a few hours or for the day it's it's not too bad and this was the quintessential dress of fashion when Dido Bell first came to Kenwood in the 1760s this is known as a sack back and it's made from silk which was a really popular choice in this period so Louise maybe you can tell us a little bit about how the Industrial Revolution influenced fashion in this period the 18th century was a really dramatic time in British history it saw Britain transformed into the first industrial superpower this was the age of the Industrial Revolution where steam technology was changing manufacturing was changing and transport links were improving all of which made Britain the first truly industrialized Nation so the dress that we have have here is made up of three main parts so we've got the Gown which opens at the front and which is worn over a petticoat so unlike today where we think of a petticoat as being an undergarment in the 18th century it was something that was on show and then the front at the center front of the bodice is filled in with a stomacher so this is just a triangular piece of fabric but often covered with these elaborate decorations we also have some excellent trim on this dress which is really fluffy and gives that kind of 18th century aesthetic and trim was another way that women stayed fashionable in the 18th century because you could have this dress and change up the trim to different things and here we can see the pinked trim on the dress So pinking is this raw Edge that's done in a decorative pattern and it was achieved by using a metal stamp that was hammered along the fabric you might see as well that this dress has a lot of fabric in it the pleats at the back are massive there's about 10 meters of Fab brick in this dress but that means that it can be really easily reused and recycled into something else and we actually see that Georgian fashion is surprisingly sustainable as garments are constantly reused because it's the fabric that's worth the money rather than the labor of making the dress and shopping in this period was really driven by fashion leaders as well like our next figure Georgiana Cavendish [Music] foreign [Music] is modeled by Alice who is wearing a gown very similar to those worn by Georgiana Cavendish The Duchess of Devonshire who was a fashion leader of the 18th century Alice out of the fabric of this gown feel it's very light it feels very um yeah quite soft the stays are a little bit more constricting but other than that quite quite free can you tell us a little bit more about Georgiana Louise yeah so Georgiana was one of the most charismatic figures of 18th century Society she was famous for her style for her fabulous parties and for being a bit of a media darling and throughout georgiana's life there really was a huge amount of focus on how she looked and the emphasis has really moved from the hips which we saw with the last look around to the bum and the supportive undergarment is actually called a bum we also see that the stomacher has disappeared and now we have a center Front opening and the hair has changed as well instead of just being about height it's also about width and basically creating as larger headpiece as you can possibly get the skirt on this dress can also allow for different options for how it can be worn so again we're seeing that versatility in fashion you can unloop these cords at the back and have the skirt Go full length so can you tell us a little bit more Louise about georgiana's life and times in London in the 18th century yeah Georgina was a woman of many interests and many talents she was one of the first women to be actively involved in politics so despite the fact that women wouldn't have the vote for more than a century her husband's status meant that she could play an active part in politics and she was a keen advocate of the wig party she in fact took to streets campaigning during one general election she was also interested in science she was interested in mineralogy and geology and she had her own laboratory where she carried out chemical experiments she wrote poetry which some of which she had published and a novel which was semi-autobiographical and was published anonymously in her own lifetime thank you so much Louise and Alice it's been a pleasure speaking with you what we find inside the wardrobes of historical figures can tell us so much about the time in which they lived and that's very much the case for Dido Bell and Georgina Cavendish if you would like to find out more about Dido Bell Georgiana Cavendish or Kenwood then please go to the English Heritage website [Music] thank you [Music]

Channel: English Heritage

Views: 38,028

Keywords: English Heritage, history

Id: DDMrpUZO5pA

Length: 12min 22sec (742 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 07 2023