Fashion in 1750–1795

The Conical Torso Above Full Skirts

For most of these four decades the fashionable body kept the same basic architecture: a corset moulded the torso into an inverted cone, narrow at the waist and smooth above it, and below that point the skirt was given as much width as supports could provide. The supports changed, but the contrast did not. When panniers widened the skirt sideways, the effect was most theatrical at court, where a 1778 fashion plate of French court dress shows the skirt extended to a breadth that required a sideways approach to doorways and furniture. That silhouette was confining and cumbersome by design: it displayed fabric, posture and leisure, and it assumed servants, carriages and rooms arranged around it. Understanding the period means holding both facts together — the elegance of the line and the physical restriction that produced it, which later reformers and neo-classical dress would react against.

The rhythm of the period is one of return and retreat. Panniers did not vanish once; they came back several times after the 1740s hoops were abandoned, each revival slightly different, before finally disappearing in the 1780s. In their place came the bustle, which pushed fullness backward instead of sideways, and then, by 1790, a skirt that stayed somewhat full without being obviously pushed out in any direction at all, apart from a slight remaining bustle. The direction of travel, despite the revivals, was steadily toward less machinery under the skirt.

Hair as Headline in the 1770s

If the skirt dominated the first half of the period, hair dominated the 1770s. Coiffures were built up very high over pads and pomade and finished with decorative objects that could carry a message. The most famous example, preserved in engraving, placed a full ship — masts and sails included — in a lady's hair to celebrate naval victory in the American war of independence, its name linking fashion directly to current events. Such heights invited mockery, and satirical caricatures of the period parodied them energetically, which itself is evidence of how widely the style was recognised. By the 1780s the big hair was gone, replaced by elaborate hats, transferring display from the hair itself to what was worn over it.

Country Clothes, Neo-Classicism and the Raised Waist

The simplification visible by the 1790s came from two directions that reinforced each other. From England came the influence of women's country outdoor wear — practical, tailored clothing made for walking and riding. Its emblem in French fashion was the redingote, the French pronunciation of the English riding coat, a tailored, coat-like dress far removed from court panniers. From art and ideas came neo-classicism, which favoured simpler lines and a classical reference point over applied excess. A transitional oddity, the pouter-pigeon front made of many layers of cloth pinned over the bodice, puffed the front of the body even as skirts calmed down, showing that change was uneven rather than a clean break.

By 1795 the most consequential change had happened at the waist: waistlines were somewhat raised. A raised waist needs less corseting of the natural waist, allows a skirt to fall more freely, and points directly to the Empire silhouette and the neo-classicism of the fashions around 1800. Its replacement was already visible in outline.