What Was the Regency Era Actually Like?

Netflix’s Bridgerton is the latest popular addition to the Regency era canon. In creator Shonda Rhimes’s sparkling world, debutantes and eligible bachelors waltz to classical covers of Ariana Grande in three-piece suits and historically inaccurate tight corsets. They have dramatic love confessions and wear an anachronous amount of eyeliner, so it may not be surprising that Bridgerton isn’t completely historically accurate. So, what was the Regency era really like? Hilary: What it technically was was the period between 1811 and 1820, in Britain, where King George III was so incapacitated by his illness that he was no longer able to rule, and instead his son, the prince of Wales, became prince regent in his stead until his father’s death in 1820. Hilary: The Regency period has become this kind of shorthand for the early 19th century in Britain. And it really conjures up that kind of incredible change of century period that ushers in the modern era in the 19th century. Tricia: At the same time, it’s a period of intense, revolutionary change. So it’s the time of the French Revolution, the Haitian Revolution, the Napoleonic Wars. The period also overlaps with the final 30 years of the abolition of the slave trade. Tricia: It’s a period when England is undergoing seismic shifts about how it understands itself. And all of that is infused in the literature of the time. Hilary: I don’t think it’s possible now in the English-speaking world to think of the Regency period, or to kind of hear the word “Regency,” without thinking of Jane Austen. She’s so intertwined with this period of history. And not just that but our perceptions of this period of history. Hilary: Looking at her life and work is a really fantastic way to examine all of the kind of clothing, dress, and textiles of the Regency period, because she’s the emblematic author. She’s the great kind of icon who has brought this period to worldwide awareness. In the 1700s women’s fashion very much subscribed to the idea that “more is more.” However, the Regency lost those huge hoop skirts, rigid whalebone bodices, and ornate patterns. Instead, the style was inspired by marble statues in ancient Greece and Rome, using lightweight muslin and cotton fabric and straight silhouettes to display the natural shape of the body (over a petticoat for modesty, of course). And then, there’s the famous “empire-waist” dress, where the high waistline begins right under the bust. Menswear, too, took a more minimalistic turn. Most outfits conformed to a fixed pattern of waistcoat vest, any type of pants, and a riding coat. Hilary: There’s becoming more of an emphasis on necks and shoulders and kind of the template of the male figure that’s still very much with us today, and all sorts of other aspects, like looking at the textiles and the trade between Indian areas, Chinese areas, and Europe, how that’s influencing innovations in the Industrial Revolution, the kind of rapid changes of clothing silhouette for women. Hilary: It’s all kind of picking up speed from about 1795 in a way that I find completely fascinating Hilary: Austen, a couple of times in the late 1790s, mentions lace cloaks or net cloaks. And the more I researched this, the more I realized that the reason they were in fashion was because there was technological breakthroughs in making net grounds. Hilary: She’s not just wearing something that’s in fashion. She’s also wearing something that is possible because of the larger long-lasting effect of Britain’s innovative industrial technology that’s developing. Clothing evolution was just one way that Britain reacted to greater societal transitions spurred by technological and political advancement. The slave trade in Britain was abolished in 1807, about the same time period as several of Austen’s novels. In fact, abolitionist ideology was sometimes considered a “fashionable” enterprise. Tricia: It’s one of the first causes that British women organize themselves around. So they participate in the sugar boycott, which was a campaign to stop the British from eating sugar produced in the West Indies. Tricia: These same women who saw in slavery, however right or wrong they were, their own subject positions as second-class citizens. It was not anywhere near the horror of the women and men that they identified with. Tricia: But they also were participating in a world that wanted to curtail their lives, who they spent time with, who they married, what they read, what they did with their leisure time. There’s all of this anxiety. Indeed, behind the sweeping romances was a whole lot of unrest. There were protests against the war effort, industrial working conditions, political representation, abolition, and more. Those issues were explored explicitly, or implicitly, in a lot of Neoclassicist and Romanticist art and literature at the time. Now there’s a little more to Bridgerton than false eyelashes and empire waists…don’t you think?