Eliza Davis Aria

“ No garment more attractive can be imagined than the déshabillé galant: a teagown of hers which was ruched from the neck round to the short train, and displayed a frilled front of lace or muslin tied with ribbons, and daintily flounced round the hem. ”

“ A VARIETY OF HEAD-DRESSES ADOPTED IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.
skilful hair-dresser who could "build" a head was at a premium; the art of hair-dressing being reckoned as one of the most important, and as rare as difficult. No lady's maid, however clever, was entrusted with this difficult task, and very complicated was the work of constructing the popular coiffure, which was piled half a yard high, and decked with pads, and false hair, and curls so stuck down and plastered with pomades that they might hold for weeks without being pulled down. ”

“ The Princess of Orange's dress was the prettiest thing that ever was seen—a corps de robe—that is, in plain English, a stiff bodied gown. The eight peers' daughters that held up her train were in the same sort of dress, all white and silver, with great quantities of jewels in their hair and long locks; some of them very pretty and well-shaped, it is a most becoming dress. ”

“ The perruques of the men, even when fresh from the embraces of the curl-papers, must have looked very insignificant by the side of the huge erections which towered above the women, who did not scruple in their martyrdom to sit on the floor of a hackney coach so that the head-dress should not be disarranged, or to go to bed with their hair surrounded by a basket, or held in position by pillows and tapes. ”

“ I cannot picture conditions more entirely unpleasant than to glaze the face with paint and grease of red and black, to decorate it at intervals with devices of sticking plaster, to supply it with false eyebrows, and to mount on the head some pounds' weight of stuffed hair, while reducing the waist at least three inches below the natural size, expanding the hips with whalebone and hoops, compressing the feet into narrow shoes, and carefully studying every movement of the arm so as to hold a fan at a significant and becoming angle. ”

“ Marie Antoinette adored feathers, and the panache flourished under her favour, and boldly
A COIFFURE. survived her mother's reprimand. "You have sent me the picture of an actress, not of a Queen," she wrote, upon receiving a picture of her daughter in a prodigious head-dress of feathers and jewels. Jewels, it is well known, were amongst Marie Antoinette's weaknesses. Did not they inspire that romance of the Queen's necklace which has pursued us for many years in various works of fiction and drama, and is still regarded as vitally interesting? ”

“ Straw hats obtained, as well as those of silk and velvet, and a mob-cap created such a sensation at Ranelagh, the popular resort of the moment, that all the women were crying out for one before the sun had risen and set again. The mob-cap was made of blonde, flowers, ribbons, and muslin; but so great was the craze for hair-dressing and head decoration that every sort of cap and hat gained some attention in turn, and amongst them were hoods of lace or velvet, edged with fur, and crêpe turbans held with jewels, with a group of feathers waving proudly on
A CAP AND HOOD. the top. ”