""Xn, yWhL. 



> :>^-^ ^.^>t 



^^m 



Figure 14. — W'inter. The lady wears a hood and mask, 

 together with furs. She is walking in Cornhill, London. 

 Engraving by VV'encelas Hollar, 1643 (Parthey no. 609). 

 {Courtesy of British Museum, London.) 



a certain extent in the fashions of tiie niid-1660s. 

 Since he did not illustrate his theory, there has always 

 been some dispute as to what the Persian dress 

 actually was,^' but in any case the fashion did not last. 

 On the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660, Charles 

 II, returning to England from Holland, retained 

 Dutch fashions for a while (fig. 15). But, by 1670, 

 English men's dress approximated the French in style, 

 although not in sumptuosity. 



In the second half of the 17th century the attention 

 of Europe was focused on the court of Louis XI\' and 

 the French style of dress, especially for men, pre- 

 dominated. In particular, the coat (jiistaiicorps), 

 which evolved from the cassock, an outer garment, 

 began to be worn regularly over the doublet, which 

 by this time was already much reduced in size yet 

 destined to survive as the waistcoat (ifsle). This 

 fashion spread fairly rapidly through Europe — in 

 En.gland, as has been mentioned, it was dominant by 

 1670 — but it is not clear how. The position of France, 

 however, was stated in a fashion article in the Mercure 

 Galantm 1673 (vol. S):^-' 



. . . rien ne plait davantage que les Modes nees en 

 France .... C'est pourquoi dans toutes les Provinces 

 du Monde on fait venir de France quantite de choses qui 

 regardent rhabillement encor qu'on ne s'habillc pas 

 tout-a-fait a la Frangoise .... 



The Mercure Galant, strangely neglected by costume 

 historians, occupies a most important place in the 

 history of fashion literature, since it is the first and for 

 almost a century the only periodical to contain regular 

 articles on contemporary fashion. The person re- 

 sponsible for editing and indeed for writing these 

 articles was Jean Donneau de Vise (1640-1710), an 

 unsuccessful dramatist, rival of Moliere, whom he sar- 

 castically attacked several times in print. The story of 

 his journalistic venture is not at all easy to unravel,^' 



mentions a French woman in London during the 

 troubles, whose customers tormented her with inquir- 

 ies about French fashions to such an extent that she 

 used to devise "new Fancies out of her own Head, 

 which were never worn in France." Most likely she 

 did not distribute fashion plates but displayed actual 

 garments or miniature models, perhaps mounted as 

 dolls ("babies"), as exantples of new fashions. 



In the Tyrannus, Evelyn not only touched on the 

 history and psychology of fashion but also went as far 

 as to recommend a reformed dress for men, including 

 the Persian vest and sash which was to be reflected to 



" E. S. DE Beer, King Charles II's own fashion," Warburg 

 Institute Journal (1935), vol. 2, no. 2, p. 105. 



^■- Translated, this reads: ". . . nothing is more pleasing 

 than the styles born in France .... This is why much relat- 

 ing to dress is imported from France into all the provinces of 

 the world, though the final dress is not exactly French." 



33 Emile Magne, Images de Paris sous Louis XIV (1939). In 

 this book, the social historian Dr. Magne devotes the best part 

 of a chapter to the Mercure Galant and gives a listing of all 

 fashion articles up to 1700. 



78 



BULLETIN 250. CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE MUSEUM OF HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY 



