Technical information together with some fashion 

 plates was available in the 1760s in various volumes 

 of the French Encyclopedic. M. de Garsault wrote the 

 section on the art of the tailor (1769) as well as sections 

 on wigs and wigmaking. The engravings by Jean Le 

 Gros (fig. 29) were of practical use to hairdressers; a 

 similar book of hairstyle by James Stewart was 

 published in England/" 



The single-sheet almanac decorated with engravings 

 of contemporary events continued to be published in 

 France in the 18th century/' but pictures in the 

 English university almanacs were mainly topographi- 

 cal or historical. The next development was the i.ssue 

 of annual memorandum books or pocket diaries, 

 which sometimes had a fashion plate as a frontispiece. 

 For example, the Ladies Museum or Pocket Memorandum 

 Book, 1774, contained an engraving of a "Lady in the 

 most fashionable dress of the year 1773." This ap- 

 peared not very long after the first production of 

 Oliver Goldsmith's comedy She Stoops to Conquer, 

 which contains the following dialogue (Act 2): 



Mrs. Hardcastle: Pray, how do you like this head, 



Mr. Hastings? 

 Mr. Hastings: Extremely elegant and degagee, upon 



my word, Madam. Your friseur is a Frenchman, 



I suppose? 

 Mrs. Hardcastle; I protest, I dressed it from a print 



in the ladies memorandum-book for the last year. 



She Stoops to Conquer was written in 1772-73, and, 

 although a memorandum book published at this date 

 and containing fashion plates of headdresses has not 

 been traced, it is very likely that one existed. 



But before this, in 1770, The Lady's Magazine or 

 Entertaining Companion for tlie Fair Sex had begun its 

 long career which lasted until 1837. Figure 30 shows 

 a typical fashion plate for 1774. A lady in full court 

 dress is talking to another in visiting dress; behind, a 

 third in full dress but without side hoops talks to a 

 friend in traveling dress with a calash hood: in the 

 background a lady in riding dress looks out of the 

 window. Artistically such a fashion plate is of no 

 great distinction, but it served a purpose — to give 

 information about current fashions — very much better 

 than the more spectacularly illustrated productions 

 such as HeidelofT's Gcdlery of Fashion. 



The 18th-century reading public became increas- 





■"OJ. Le Gros, V Art de la coiffure (1768). J.-^mes Stew.^rt. 

 Plocaeosmos or the whole .Art of Hairdressing (1782). 



" C. L. Reon.ault de .S.a\!Gnv, Lcs almanac/is illustrees du 

 XVIIh'f Steele (1909). 



Figure 29. — Engraving by Jean le Gros depicting 

 French hair style, ca. 1760. From L'.4rt de la Coif- 

 fure. {Courtesy of Victoria & Albert Museum, London.) 



ingly fashion conscious, and tiiere are several series 

 of French colored prints, the finest of theiu by Moreau 

 le Jeune from 1775 onward, which have high artistic 

 luerit and have been sought continuously by col- 

 lectors. Their purpose, however, was explicitly "pour 

 servir a I'histoire des Modes et du Costume des 

 Franijais dans le XVIII""' siccle." The prints arc 

 strongly romanticized and must be regarded as a 

 record of something between historical and fancy 

 dress. The accompanying text names but only briefly 

 describes the dresses and then passes on to facetious 

 moralizing. 



In the same way in London in 1794, Nicolaus 

 HeidelofT, whose Gallery of Fashion was an imitation 

 of one of the French series by Esnaut and Rapilly 

 entitled La Gallerie des Modes, though claiming that 

 the dresses he described were real ones, seems to have 



P.APER 60: ORIGIN .\ND E.ARLY HISTORY OF THE FASHION PLATE 



87 



