Fashion in the French Revolution (1)

Luong 1
Emily Luong
Professor Duane Nystrom
Composition I - EN-101-D
29 March 2022
Fashion and The French Revolution
The French Revolution is regarded as one of the most important events in history,
impacting France and the rest of the world. The changes that the French Revolution brought to
France were not limited to politics but also fashion. Fashion in the French Revolution is directly
related to politics and served as an important symbolic function amidst the chaos of the French
Revolution.
The French Revolution (1789–1799) was an important event in French history and
considered more important than other revolutions in later France. The French revolution brought
down feudalism in France while also bringing about the emancipation of the people, a fairer
division of land, the abolition of elite privileges, and the establishment of equal rights. The
institution and even the Roman Catholic Church in France have undergone many changes.
Although the French institution went through republican, imperial, and monarchical stages in the
75 years after Napoleon Bonaparte overthrew the First Republic, this revolution ended feudalism
in French society. It also reduces the tendency to tyranny and enhances the power of the people,
turning them from subjects to citizens. On a global scale, the French Revolution led to the
outbreak of democratic revolutions and the birth of republics, signaling the end of feudalism
worldwide. The French Revolution inspired European intellectuals and it became the starting
point for developing modern political ideologies, leading to the birth and popularity of
liberalism, extremism, nationalism, world secularism, socialism, communism, and many other
ideologies. The influence of the French Revolution was very significant, especially on the feudal


Luong 2
Emily Luong
Professor Duane Nystrom
Composition I - EN-101-D

29 March 2022
countries at that time. From 1760 to 1840, France's role in the world was crucial. The French's
influence reached Ireland, Poland, the Netherlands, Italy, and many other lands. France was at
the center of intellectual movements in the eighteenth century and France's science industry has
led the world. Most of the cultural and political works are written in French and cited by scholars
of many countries. Other people worldwide follow the French's ideas, initiatives, and inventions.
French was already an international language, used by scholars and aristocrats of many countries
in Europe. French gold coins circulated throughout Europe and accounted for half of all foreign
currency trade, and France's exports to the rest of Europe were larger than those of Britain.
Women fashion before the French Revolution under the influence of Marie Antoinette
was starting to become more modest and practical. Before the time of Marie Antoinette, the usual
fashion was a low-necked gown (usually called in French a robe), worn over a petticoat. Most
gowns had skirts that opened in front to show the petticoat worn beneath. As part of the general
simplification of dress, the open bodice with a separate stomacher was replaced by a bodice with
edges that met center front. The robe la franỗaise or sack-back gown, with back pleats hanging
loosely from the neckline, long worn as court fashion, made its last appearance early in this
period. A fitted bodice held the front of the gown closely to the figure. The robe à l'anglaise or
close-bodied gown featured back pleats sewn in place to fit closely to the body, and then released
into the skirt which would be draped in various ways. Elaborate draping "à la polonaise" became
fashionable by the mid-1770s, featuring backs of the gowns' skirts pulled up into swags either
through loops or through the pocket slits of the gown. Front-wrapping thigh-length shortgowns


Luong 3
Emily Luong
Professor Duane Nystrom
Composition I - EN-101-D
29 March 2022
or bedgowns of lightweight printed cotton fabric remained fashionable at-home morning wear,
worn with petticoats. Over time, bedgowns became the staple upper garment of British and

American female working-class street wear. Women would also often wear a neck handkerchief
or a more formal lace modesty piece, particularly on lower cut dresses, often for modesty
reasons. In surviving artwork, there are few women depicted wearing bedgowns without a
handkerchief. These large handkerchiefs could be of linen, plain, colored or of printed cotton for
working wear. Wealthy women wore handkerchiefs of fine, sheer fabrics, often trimmed with
lace or embroidery with their expensive gowns. By 1790, skirts were still somewhat full, but they
were no longer obviously pushed out in any particular direction (though a slight bustle pad might
still be worn). The "pouter-pigeon" front came into style (many layers of cloth pinned over the
bodice), but in other respects women's fashions were starting to be simplified by influences from
Englishwomen's country outdoors wear (thus the "redingote" was the French pronunciation of an
English "riding coat"), and from neoclassicism. By 1795, waistlines were somewhat raised,
preparing the way for the development of the empire silhouette and unabashed neo-classicism of
late 1790s fashions
The dress that would gain particular prominence in the 1780s and the following decade
was the white muslin chemise, or chemise à la reine. Although Marie Antoinette was vilified in
1784 for allowing herself to be portrayed in an one-piece gown adorned only with a matching
double-ruffled collar, shallow cuffs, and a sheer, gold-colored sash, the chemise was worn by
many women across the socio-economic spectrum and “the evolution of this pivotal garment


Luong 4
Emily Luong
Professor Duane Nystrom
Composition I - EN-101-D
29 March 2022
illuminates a period of profound change in French fashion and society” (Chrisman-Campbell
172). As dress historian Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell points out, although “the chemise à la
reine was similar to the female undergarment in construction… it was not identical [and] it bore
a closer resemblance to the unstructured white gowns traditionally worn by young children of
both sexes” (Chrisman-Campbell 172). Unlike the two-piece styles, the chemise was put on over

the head and did not require a pannier and, while muslin was a favorite choice for this dress,
“crêpe, silk gauze, lawn, and linen were also used” with some of these lightweight fabrics being
washable (Chrisman-Campbell 174-175). Sold by couturières and marchandes de modes, the
chemise’s in its early iteration, the chemise was loose-fitting, with the excess fabric gathered at
the neckline and shoulder seams and controlled at the waist by a wide sash, usually of a
contrasting color. A rare surviving example of a chemise in the collection of the Manchester City
Galleries “with channels sewn into the sleeves for ribbons” is similar to those worn by Marie
Antoinette and Madame Lavoisier, depicted with her husband by Jacques-Louis David in 1788
(Chrisman-Campbell 193). The style of arranging the sleeves into puffs seen in both paintings
was called “attachées sur les bras” (Chrisman-Campbell 193). David has meticulously recorded
the sheerness of Madame Lavoisier’s chemise—the dark wood floor and hem of her white
petticoat are visible through the gown’s transparent cotton train. The chemise popularized the
vogue for white more broadly in this decade as is evident in portraits and fashion plates showing
women in white, two-piece cotton and silk gowns and in surviving garments. In 1786, the


Luong 5
Emily Luong
Professor Duane Nystrom
Composition I - EN-101-D
29 March 2022
Comtesse de Provence, the queen’s sister-in-law, sat for Joseph Boze who depicted her in highstyled robe à l’anglaise and petticoat of gleaming ivory silk satin trimmed with scallop-edged
lace and matching bowknots and a satin-striped fichu . The following year, the Magasins des
Modes nouvelles illustrated a young woman in a “fourreau” (a gown with back panels stitched
from the back of the neck to the hem) of white linen over a petticoat of white [silk] taffeta, and
informed its readers that for morning walks, especially during fine weather, white fourreaux,
robes à l’anglaise, and caracos with matching petticoats (Fig. 21) should be worn over white
underpetticoats and that blue, pink, purple, and other colored underpetticoats, or “transparens,”
were out of fashion. The change of fashion in the French Revolution was neccesary and an
essential point in the fashion of the French Revolution was that the middle class often adopted or

followed the fashion trends of the upper class, which resulted in the upper class always looking
for ways to innovate themselves. This is understandable because fashion in this period reflected
social status. From about 1650 on, French fashion took over all of Europe, displacing the Spanish
influence. The clothes produced began to resemble more modern, uniform outfits. Unlike 16thcentury clothing combinations, tops, skirts, and gowns can all be made of the same materials and
worn simultaneously. Fashion also reflects the spirit of the Baroque art movement. Clothing as
well as architecture or sculpture, at that time, flourished both in men's and women's clothing in a
more natural and elegant style. Initially, changes in fashion led to a division between Europe's
upper classes and the subsequent development of distinctive ethnic styles. These national styles


Luong 6
Emily Luong
Professor Duane Nystrom
Composition I - EN-101-D
29 March 2022
remained very different until a protest movement in the 17th–18th centuries imposed the same
styles again, originating mainly in the French Ancien Régime. Although the rich are often at the
forefront of fashion, the growing wealth of modern Europe led to the bourgeoisie and even
peasants following the trend at a distance, but still close. with the elite - an element that Fernand
Braudel considers one of the main engines for fashion change.Clothing in the 17th century began
to show the individuality of each individual reflected in the different clothes and customer
opinions become an integral part of tailoring production.
For centuries, clothings has always been used to represent one’s status and personality
and in the case of the french revolution, clothing were used to express political views. During
the Reign of Terror that began in 1792, thousands of French nobles, priests, and those who
sympathized with them were guillotined. In the midst of these troubles, clothing played an
important symbolic function, as men and women relied upon it to express their political
convictions; dress became alternately a way to support or to condemn revolutionary change.
From the earliest days of the Revolution elements of dress played a vital role in the political
movement's identity. In the wake of the Storming of the Bastille on 14 July 1789, the government

of the city of Paris decreed that all citizens in the capital must wear a tricolor cockade, a round
emblem constructed of ribbons displaying the city's colors of red and blue as well as the
monarchy's standard white. Groups that used clothings to express their political views includes
The Sans Culottes (meaning "without britches") were drawn largely from the ranks of Parisian
shopkeepers, artisans, and poor workers in the city, groups that had long worn trousers rather


Luong 7
Emily Luong
Professor Duane Nystrom
Composition I - EN-101-D
29 March 2022
than the stylish knee britches of aristocratic and bourgeois society. The group's uniform consisted
of long trousers, a short-skirted coat known as the carmagnole, a tri-colored vest, and a bonnet
rouge (or "red cap"), and their clothing became synonymous with their agitation for radical
democratic reforms (encyclopedia.com) groups of male incroyables (literally "unbelievables")
and female merveilleuses ("the marvels") appeared on the Parisian scene whose clothing mocked
the trends of the previous years. The female merveilleuses displayed daring amounts of cleavage
or wore sheer dresses that exposed large portions of their legs underneath the sheerest of fabrics.
Their dress thus mocked the Revolution's dictates that women's clothes should provide for
greater freedom of movement by carrying them to a logical conclusion.
The French Revolution bought significant changes to France and forever changed the
social hierarchy of France. With the royal family and the Catholic church no longer in power,
people could freely express their opinions under the newly appointed democratic government.
The French Revolution also changed Fashion, making Fashion a means for people to express
their political views and granting women more freedom, represented by the emergence of the
white chemise.
Works cited
“1780-1789.” Fashion History Timeline, 3 Aug. 2021, />

Luong 8
Emily Luong
Professor Duane Nystrom
Composition I - EN-101-D
29 March 2022
“Arts and Humanities through the Eras”. Encyclopedia.com. 28 Feb. 2022 .”
/>“Women's Fashion during and after the French Revolution (1790 to 1810).” All About Canadian
History, All About Canadian History, 2 Dec. 2017,
/>Fury, Alexander. “When Fashion Becomes a Form of Protest.” The New York Times, The New
York Times, 17 Aug. 2016, />

Luong 9
Emily Luong
Professor Duane Nystrom
Composition I - EN-101-D
29 March 2022

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Work cited
Ribeiro, Aileen. Fashion in the French Revolution. B.T. Batsford, 1988.
Johannes Pietsch. On different types of women’s dresses in France in the Louis

3.

XVI period. Sep2013, Vol. 17 Issue 4, p397-416. 20p.
Naomi Lubrich. The Little White Dress: Politics and Polyvalence in
Revolutionary