The Horror of Petticoat Breeches

Susan reports:
Loretta, you know I like a thrill or two myself –– but I also never tire of the endless back-and-forth swings of fashion. One generation of stylish gentlemen searches for new ways to clothe their nether-parts in the most revealing way possible (ah, what Brummel would have given for an ounce of Lycra!), while another decides the only way to strut their stuff is to hide it all in acres of fabric.

I’m not thinking the voluminous jeans of recent hip-hop style, either. As has often been the case, London gentlemen in the 1660s looked to Paris for fashion guidance as dictated by the French and that master of conspicuous consumption, King Louis XIV (there he is to the left.) Blame Louis, then, for “petticoat breeches”: knee-length garments with loose legs cut as full as a lady’s petticoats, and further trimmed with loops and bows of silk ribbon. (One surviving pair is decorated with over two hundred yards' worth.) Add a short doublet, beribboned periwig, sagging stockings, and floppy, lace-trimmed boots or shoes, and you've got quite A Look.

The legs of petticoat breeches were cut so wide that diarist Samuel Pepys describes how a friend of his “told of his mistake the other day to put both his legs through one of the knees of his breeches, and went so all day.”

There’s much more in Fashion and Fiction: Dress in Art & Literature in Stuart England, by my absolute favorite costume historian/writer Aileen Ribeiro. As is always the case, the older generation in the 1660s fussed over the fashions worn by the young folk. The students at Oxford liked to “swash it in apparell”, leaving their elders to lament that it was “a strange effeminate age when men strive to imitate women…viz., long periwigs, patches on their faces, short wide breeches like petticotes, bedecked with ribbons of all colours.” Doesn't this caricature from 1663 say it all?

Tight pantaloons

Loretta reports:
Since I’m only a thrill-seeker, I never thought about saggy breeches. So I turned to Ian Kelly’s Beau Brummell, the Ultimate Man of Style.

Here’s what Kelly says:
“Brummell wore sheer black silk jersey, made up as breeches for Carlton House or the theater, and as pantaloons for the clubs.” Further on we learn, “They were not always stocking woven, however. Brummell and Jonathan Meyer the tailor pioneered an alternative style that attempted to replicate in fabric or leather the three-dimensional form-fitting style of stockings or silk jersey stockinette.” I can only assume that this was a way to reduce the sag factor. Impossible to imagine Brummell wearing saggy anything. He was all about the perfect fit, and the fit was form-fitting and extremely revealing. According to Kelly, “society hostesses were later said to regret the passing of the fashion because ‘one could always tell what a young man was thinking.’”

This is a fine book for Regency era history nerds because it’s loaded with all kinds of fascinating trivia. It was made into a movie, which is delightful if you want to look at period clothes and scenery and James Purefoy (and I am one who does and did). But don’t expect a screenplay bearing much relation to the book--or history, for that matter.

Further Unbuttoning

Susan reports:
A few more thoughts about these knitted breeches from Colonial Williamsburg....

I knit and sew, so I not only looked at those elegant black knitted breeches with Loretta, but I considered them in a more practical light. Yes, the knitted fabric stretched, the way an old-fashioned cotton sock stretches. But the stretch would come from the stockinette stitch alone, not the fiber (which I think was either cotton or linen thread.) Neither linen nor cotton has any natural recovery -- a fancy way of saying that once they stretch, they don't return to their previous shape unless they're washed, and even then it can be iffy. Think again of those old socks from high school gym class, and how sad and loose they soon became. (This is why modern fabrics often incorporate small amounts of Lycra blended in, the super-stretchy stuff with enough recovery to pull the other fiber along with it.) Which, of course, explains why if you were a gentleman who liked his breeches fashionably tight, you'd request your tailor to cut them with so much negative ease, that three-inches-too-small that Loretta mentions.

But what must those breeches have looked like after a long day lounging in a gentleman's club, sitting behind a desk, or riding in the park? How droopy did the knees and backside become? Did the truly fashion-forward gentleman only wear his breeches so long as they were taut, and change into fresh ones when they began to sag, the way that dandies like Beau Brummel changed their linen shirts several times a day? Was this one more way a peacock-male displayed his impeccable attention to sartorial detail? Or was the droopiness just an accepted part of the style for most men, the way bagged-out-jeans are today?

Another question to ponder: men's shirts at this time were still voluminously cut much wider than the body, with tails that could reach the knees, depending on personal taste. Where exactly did they tuck all that excess fabric into those narrow cut breeches?

Reader, I unbuttoned them

Loretta reports:

Finally, I got to unbutton a pair of breeches.
Susan and I entered the milliner’s shop in Colonial Williamsburg,
and there they were, spread out on the counter.

We were told we were welcome to touch, so I did.
In case you were wondering, that “stockinette” you may have read about is definitely stretchy--and thinner than you’d guess. These breeches are 18th century, a little before my writing time.


It was very interesting to learn that men of the Regency wore their clothes much tighter. Tailors, we were told, were advised to cut the material three inches narrower than the man’s measurements. So now I’m picturing men in tights. (???)

The Eyes Have It

Susan reports:

One of my fav galleries at the Philadelphia Museum of Art isn't really a gallery, but a little room.  As it should be, because it's filled with little, tiny paintings. Long before IPhones became the way to keep in touch, miniature paintings were the memento of choice for the titled and affluent. Exquisitely painted and framed, miniatures traveled well, whether worn as a locket or on a watch fob or tucked inside a trunk.

But in the late 18th century, the Prince Regent (soon to be George IV, and the Regent who made his Regency THE Regency) launched a fad for a special kind of miniature. Mrs. Fitzherbert, his lover and secret wife, commissioned Richard Cosway to paint a miniature of her right eye, a conceit that was as discrete as it was charming. At once the Prince returned the favor, and had his eye painted and set into a ring for her to wear. Eye miniatures became an instant sensation in England, France, and even America, and were popular well into the nineteenth century. The largest example that I've photographed here (a bit blurry through the glass, I'm afraid) is only about two inches across, and they decorate brooches, rings, and snuffboxes. I like how modern collectors have dubbed them "lover's eyes"; seems fitting, doesn't it?

And so far. nobody's winked.