Content area
Full Text
THE LADIES OF THE Netherfield party are described on their arrival at the assembly in Meryton as having "an air of decided fashion" (PP 10): apparently everyone present recognizes something that distinguishes them from the local ladies. But what does that phrase mean? How does their appearance differ from that of the Bennets, Lucases, and other residents of that small market-town community? This cryptic phrase, when deciphered, gives us a glimpse into the dynamics of early nineteenth-century fashion and its nuances as followed by women of different ranks and budgets.
We can at least guess that Miss Bingley and Mrs. Hurst née Bingley are wearing the latest London modes. This hypothesis begs two questions: are the Merytonites lagging significantly behind in the latest fashions? And are the Londoners' clothes more sophisticated and complicated in cut, requiring skills beyond a small-town dressmaker? Or is there something else that is lost in translation between London and the provinces? The late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries comprised a period in which dress construction was relatively uncomplicated and thus achievable by those with less than couturelevel sewing skills. Reasonably affordable cottons were in style for day and evening wear. Surely the Bennets and their neighbors can manage to look fairly fashionable. What, then, comprises the subtle distinctions between those with the "air of fashion" and those without? Does the différence lie in fabric, cut, trim, accessories, or something else entirely-or a combination of factors?
To answer, we must look at how dresses were constructed at the time the novel was written and published (the late 1790s through early 1810s); at how fashion was disseminated; and at what else the society of the time would have invested in the phrase "air of fashion."
Dressmaking had just undergone a radical change when Austen was writing her first draft of Pride and Prejudice as First Impressions in the 1790s. For a hundred years and more, gowns had been draped on the conically corseted body by a highly skilled "mantua-maker,"1 who draped, pleated, and pinned fabric to the customer standing before her in shift and stays. The entire back bodice consisted of folded, pleated, and stitched-down lengths of fabric that continued, at center back, into the skirt (Waugh diag. ix-xxi). The stitching on...