La Belle Assemblée, October 1815.
“Autumnal Walking Dress.”
Here’s another dress and hat designed by Mrs. Bell. A couple of times in the description something specific in the design is compared to the previous month. Mrs. Bell, this magazine, and most other ladies’ magazines of the period encouraged their readers to believe that fashion changed from month to month, and that the truly fashionable would want to be up-to-date with the absolute latest styles. This also, of course, encouraged constant new business for modistes like Mrs. Bell.
The hat is praised at length for its novelty. I suspect it may have been a bit too novel, as I have never seen another quite like it in fashion prints of this time.
The print is described at length in the magazine as follows:
“A jaconet muslin high dress, the body similar to the dresses of last month; long sleeve, prettily and tastefully ornamented at top with letting-in lace, in such a manner as to form a very novel half-sleeve. The bottom of the dress is finished by a triple flounce of worked muslin or lace, if the former, it is rather narrower than have been worn lately; the bottom of the sleeve is ornamented in a similar style, but the collar is trimmed with only a single fall of lace or work, which has, in our opinion, a lighter and more elegant effect. The spenser worn with this dress is composed of a crimson silk, made by British manufacturers, superior even to the French, and now for the first time attempted in England; we can say, without hesitation, that it is superior either to velvet or satin, and extremely durable. Mrs. Bell has the merit of introducing it, by whom alone it can be obtained. The spenser is is formed in a style of simple elegance, which must powerfully recommend it to the belles of real taste; it is tight to the shape at the top, but has a slight fullness at the bottom of the waist, which is drawn in and finished with a very elegant silk trimming. The epaulet sleeve is pretty, and has a very graceful effect. The hat is composed of white moss silk, and trimmed with satin ribband to correspond with the spenser. We have no hesitation in saying of this tasteful hat that its form is perfectly novel, and we think the most elegantly fancied that we ever saw; it is at once simple, gentlewomanly, and becoming; the elegant material of which it is composed still preserves the gloss of novelty, because it is worn only by distinguished fashionables, amongst whom it is in the highest estimation for hats, bonnets, &c; the exquisite delicacy of its texture, its beautiful but singular appearance, which is rich without being in the least heavy, have gained it a decided preference over every other material for head-dresses. Blue kid slippers and gloves, and a white French silk scarf, with a rich border, round the throat, finish the dress.”
