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The Dress of the People: Everyday Fashion in Eighteenth-Century England
This inventive and lucid book sheds new light on topics as diverse as crime, authority, and retailing in eighteenth-century Britain, and makes a major contribution to broader debates around consumerism, popular culture, and material life.
The material lives of ordinary English men and women were transformed in the years following the restoration of Charles II in 1660. Tea and sugar, the fruits of British mercantile and colonial expansion, altered their diets. Pendulum clocks and Staffordshire pottery, the products of British manufacturing ingenuity, enriched their homes. But it was in their clothing that ordinary people enjoyed the greatest change in their material lives. This book retrieves the unknown story of ordinary consumers in eighteenth-century England and provides a wealth of information about what they wore. John Styles reveals that ownership of new fabrics and new fashions was not confined to the rich but extended far down the social scale to the small farmers, day laborers, and petty tradespeople who formed a majority of the population. The author focuses on the clothes ordinary people wore, the ways they acquired them, and the meanings they attached to them, shedding new light on all types of attire and the occasions on which they were worn.
The material lives of ordinary English men and women were transformed in the years following the restoration of Charles II in 1660. Tea and sugar, the fruits of British mercantile and colonial expansion, altered their diets. Pendulum clocks and Staffordshire pottery, the products of British manufacturing ingenuity, enriched their homes. But it was in their clothing that ordinary people enjoyed the greatest change in their material lives. This book retrieves the unknown story of ordinary consumers in eighteenth-century England and provides a wealth of information about what they wore. John Styles reveals that ownership of new fabrics and new fashions was not confined to the rich but extended far down the social scale to the small farmers, day laborers, and petty tradespeople who formed a majority of the population. The author focuses on the clothes ordinary people wore, the ways they acquired them, and the meanings they attached to them, shedding new light on all types of attire and the occasions on which they were worn.
448 pages, Hardcover
First published February 26, 2008
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
April 5, 2021
I read this as part of a historical costuming project. A very thorough introduction to what the everyday person wore in 18th century England, based on a number of primary sources. An excellent range of period illustrations showcasing different clothing options. The appendices were incredibly useful in understanding the primary data the author discusses in the main text. Highly recommended for anyone deeply interested in the history of English clothing, but definitely not a light "for fun" read.
November 6, 2016
This book is meticulously researched and documented and I cannot imagine that anything more could be said on this subject unless new archival information is found. The "people" are the non-elite of Georgian Britain, from merchants on down to those forced to rely on parish poor relief or workhouses. It is not an easy book to read because the amount of documentation Styles provides becomes overwhelming after a while. I write that not to denigrate the book for it is a solid piece of research and, as a perusal of the table of contents will show, he analyzes the clothing from various perspectives. The clothing is illustrated not only by art work of the period but also by photos of some of the pieces of fabric attached to foundlings taken in by the London foundling hospital, attached by the mothers in hope that sometime in the future they might be able to retrieve their child. (It is sad to see these scraps and realize that the death of the child and/or mother or her continued poverty made reunion impossible.) Styles' research presents new insights and puts to an end some of the suppositions of the dress of the everyday people. For example, the people were interested in obtaining affordable quality clothes contrary to the common supposition that they went for the cheapest possible. Another example: there was no "peasant" uniform dress as there was on the continent. Thirdly: the people were interested in keeping up with fashion insofar as they could afford clothing.
November 8, 2023
Concerned more with cultural perception than specific fashion trends, John Styles’ Dress of the People serves as a comprehensive guide to working-class attitudes towards clothing and fashion in 18th century England. Through this book, Styles argues that the “plebeians”, as he is so fond of calling them, valued clean and neat dress as markers of “decency” and as such put a not insignificant amount of time, money, and effort to obtain fashionable clothing, often determined by separate standards than simply following the trends of the wealthy. In saying so, Styles rejects previous scholarship and cultural depictions that fashion was an extravagance far out of reach for the working class, despite also pointing out that new clothing was the first luxury forgone in hard times (most often in the years right after marriage.)
Styles is no stranger to textile culture, having spent his academic career researching early-modern English material culture, manufacturing, and design first at the Victoria and Albert Museum and then at the University of Hertfordshire. His other works include Threads of Feeling, a book and accompanying exhibit focused even closer on the foundling directories and fabric scraps mentioned in The Dress of the People, as well as Spinning in the Era of the Spinning Wheel. This extensive background certainly comes in handy in Dress of the People, which is massive in its breadth and manages to encompass almost all aspects of commonplace dress in his chosen location and time period, from materials to provincial variation to charity and beyond. Even his one admitted omission – that of children’s dress – makes an appearance in the chapter on clothes and the life cycle.
Through four major sections – “Patterns of Clothing”, “Getting and Spending”, “Understanding Clothes”, and “People and their Clothes”, Styles outlines the ways in which 18th century British plebeians thought about and interacted with their clothing, whether it be the contents of their wardrobes, the language they used to discuss clothing, or simply the cost of clothing themselves and their families. Notably, the notion of cleanliness crops up again and again, linked to ideas of decency (although, surprisingly, not moral failure) and providing a reason for even the poorest of the poor to own multiple changes of linen. To make his arguments. Styles employs an extensive and varied collection of primary sources, including runaway advertisements, lists of stolen goods, probate records, lists of items lost in fires, and much more. Perhaps the most important evidence he provides for the reader, however, is an abundance of illustrations. Indeed, a book about fashion would feel incomplete without visual references. Full-color reproductions of contemporary paintings and cartoons serve not only as a visual guide to give the reader a sense of full outfits but also illustrate popular conception of specific modes of dress, while photographs of fabric scraps found with babies left at the Foundling Hospital illustrate Styles’ point that even the poor and destitute needed not dress only in drab fabrics.
However, beyond allusions to a near-famine in 1795, Styles skimps on the historical context, especially through allusions to the ever-growing British Empire’s overseas resources that fail to examine the actual presence of colonies. There are some comments on Indian methods of color-fast printing that enabled the proliferation of elaborately-patterned cottons, but Styles chooses not to comment on the imperialist systems of colonization that made these fabrics readily available to the British public. Similarly, he mentions that the mid-18th century saw the “rapid take-up of tobacco, sugar, and tea as regular purchases”, undoubtedly the result of colonization in the Western Hemisphere, which itself goes completely unmentioned. Indeed, the complete omission of North American and Caribbean colonies, although understandable, is startling for not even receiving acknowledgement. Although colonial culture and attitudes towards dress would certainly have differed from that of the homeland, the presence of the colonies themselves makes all this increased consumption possible and should have warranted at least an aside. His tagline specifying dress in England, not Britain, might make this omission less egregious, were it not for frequent mentions of Wales and Scotland (especially in the first chapter, “Travellers’ Tales”).
All in all, The Dress of the People is an impressive and expansive overview of popular attitudes towards and consumption of clothing among the 18th century English working class. Its illustrations provide important visual aids, crucial in fashion and textile history, to illustrate contemporary ideas of good and clean dress. However, Styles cleaves perhaps too closely to keeping this work solely a survey of clothes culture during his time period, leaving out mentions of other historical events and trends, most notably the British imperialism that propelled an increase in consumerism during this time period in the first place.
Styles is no stranger to textile culture, having spent his academic career researching early-modern English material culture, manufacturing, and design first at the Victoria and Albert Museum and then at the University of Hertfordshire. His other works include Threads of Feeling, a book and accompanying exhibit focused even closer on the foundling directories and fabric scraps mentioned in The Dress of the People, as well as Spinning in the Era of the Spinning Wheel. This extensive background certainly comes in handy in Dress of the People, which is massive in its breadth and manages to encompass almost all aspects of commonplace dress in his chosen location and time period, from materials to provincial variation to charity and beyond. Even his one admitted omission – that of children’s dress – makes an appearance in the chapter on clothes and the life cycle.
Through four major sections – “Patterns of Clothing”, “Getting and Spending”, “Understanding Clothes”, and “People and their Clothes”, Styles outlines the ways in which 18th century British plebeians thought about and interacted with their clothing, whether it be the contents of their wardrobes, the language they used to discuss clothing, or simply the cost of clothing themselves and their families. Notably, the notion of cleanliness crops up again and again, linked to ideas of decency (although, surprisingly, not moral failure) and providing a reason for even the poorest of the poor to own multiple changes of linen. To make his arguments. Styles employs an extensive and varied collection of primary sources, including runaway advertisements, lists of stolen goods, probate records, lists of items lost in fires, and much more. Perhaps the most important evidence he provides for the reader, however, is an abundance of illustrations. Indeed, a book about fashion would feel incomplete without visual references. Full-color reproductions of contemporary paintings and cartoons serve not only as a visual guide to give the reader a sense of full outfits but also illustrate popular conception of specific modes of dress, while photographs of fabric scraps found with babies left at the Foundling Hospital illustrate Styles’ point that even the poor and destitute needed not dress only in drab fabrics.
However, beyond allusions to a near-famine in 1795, Styles skimps on the historical context, especially through allusions to the ever-growing British Empire’s overseas resources that fail to examine the actual presence of colonies. There are some comments on Indian methods of color-fast printing that enabled the proliferation of elaborately-patterned cottons, but Styles chooses not to comment on the imperialist systems of colonization that made these fabrics readily available to the British public. Similarly, he mentions that the mid-18th century saw the “rapid take-up of tobacco, sugar, and tea as regular purchases”, undoubtedly the result of colonization in the Western Hemisphere, which itself goes completely unmentioned. Indeed, the complete omission of North American and Caribbean colonies, although understandable, is startling for not even receiving acknowledgement. Although colonial culture and attitudes towards dress would certainly have differed from that of the homeland, the presence of the colonies themselves makes all this increased consumption possible and should have warranted at least an aside. His tagline specifying dress in England, not Britain, might make this omission less egregious, were it not for frequent mentions of Wales and Scotland (especially in the first chapter, “Travellers’ Tales”).
All in all, The Dress of the People is an impressive and expansive overview of popular attitudes towards and consumption of clothing among the 18th century English working class. Its illustrations provide important visual aids, crucial in fashion and textile history, to illustrate contemporary ideas of good and clean dress. However, Styles cleaves perhaps too closely to keeping this work solely a survey of clothes culture during his time period, leaving out mentions of other historical events and trends, most notably the British imperialism that propelled an increase in consumerism during this time period in the first place.
November 16, 2016
What did ordinary working people wear in the past? It is a fascinating question, given that we have no treasured relics to look at in museums. This is a serious book that used the methodologies of archival research - looking at inventories after fires, criminal cases, diaries and pauper institutions - to give some answers. The short answer is that clothes were brighter than we might imagine (lots of purple and white gowns) and serious objects to aspire and save for. Kerchiefs were never missing from a woman's neck and men loved a spotted kerchief too, around their necks. A decent suit of clothes, so crucial as an indicator of rank, was worth the sacrifice of many years. A brilliant chapter on timepieces reveals that a pocketwatch was the 'must have' equivalent of today's iphone - treasured, saved for, and yet often disappointing in its poor timekeeping. Whilst not a light read, this book is invaluable for historical writers who want to get their working characters out of 'drab' fabrics and showing some pride in their well-turned out, multi-coloured appearance.
January 24, 2011
I'd definitely come back to this for reference; some of the information about fibers and styles used is quite useful. There are some great paintings referenced, as well. Plowing through the whole thing over 4 days or was a bit of a stretch (it was due back at the library). I did learn a new word: sartorial. Means something about having to do with tailoring clothing or styles of dress. I wish there was a book like this for the colonies and early America.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews