Ackermann’s Repository of Arts, January 1815.
“Opera Dress.”
It’s always fun to see a dress from the back. In this case, it allows us a better view of the lovely tippet of shell lace. We also get a nice view of the hairdo from this angle.
Note the rather effusive praise for the designer, Mrs. Bean, in the magazine’s description. She was a popular modiste with affluent and aristocratic clients. She specialized in evening wear and court dresses. The next year, she was hired to provide 26 dresses and pelisses for the wedding trousseau of Princess Charlotte.
The print is described in the magazine as follows:
“Light pink satin gown, trimmed round the bottom with a lace flounce, laid on richly, worked and headed with tufts of the same; short full sleeve, trimmed with lace. A shell lace tippet. White kid gloves, drawn over the elbow. An Indian fan of carved ivory. Slippers of white kid. Full crop head-dress, ornamented with flowers. The fashions for this month, and those for the whole of last year, are from the designs of Mrs. Bean, of Albemarle-street. This lady, since her visit to Paris, has incorporated in her dresses, in the style of French costume, all that is to be admired in the exuberant varieties which that country produces; and has moderated the same by a fancy governed by a chaste feeling peculiar to herself. We are much delighted on viewing the splendid dresses in the Magazin des Modes of this lady.”
