5 - Fashion

Summary

‘Do not wonder that we do not entirely attend to things of earth: fashion has ascended to a higher element. All our views are directed to the air. Balloons occupy senators, philosophers, ladies, everybody…’

Horace Walpole to Sir Horace Mann, 2 December 1783

FASHION WAS A well-established idea and practice by the late eighteenth century. The concept, argues Hannah Greig, was a fluid one with meanings too multiple to be explained by one all-encompassing theory. Some historians see the whole century as one of consumer revolution, while others identify surges towards the end of the century. ‘Technical innovations in textile production were crucial in propelling and defining the Industrial Revolution. Fashion, especially fashion in clothing, was central to any remodelling of consumer expectations that preceded, or accompanied revolutionary increases in production.’ John Styles argues magisterially that those consumer expectations were not confined to the rich. Plebeian people took an interest in fashion and were leaders as well as followers of fashion. Literature that complained about luxury emphasised that all classes were too eager to buy and display. If the poor made do with ribbons and fairings rather than lace and jewels, they were nonetheless literate in the language of clothes – not least because many worked in textile-related trades – and contributed to making fashion an important cultural force.

Balloons played into this world in several ways. They inspired particular fashions in clothing, they promoted a new shape for women, and they accelerated the growth of fashion beyond a core category of clothing to encompass new categories including that of newness itself. For some of this there was a ready-made language: French. Ton, beau monde, à la mode were established terms for fashionability in the eighteenth century and applied easily to the latest products from France – of which balloons were one.

The dress of our fashionable belles departs, day after day, more and more from genuine simplicity and natural taste. It does not altogether yet approach the male form, but it is of that mongrel form which appears to less advantage than either male or female dress, separately.