I’m always on the search for examples of fashions during the time in which I write. Women’s fashions are easy enough to find, though they can be challenging to decipher. (For me, anyway…even today’s fashions befuddle me, so going back two hundred years definitely makes my brain spin!) Read this description from fashions for December, 1827:

CARRIAGE DRESS: A pelisse of rich gros de Naples of a beautiful stone colour with a deep border of the same on the bias headed by narrow vandykes.
-From the Lady’s Monthly Museum, Vol. 26

Hmm…it takes some sleuthing, but I can ultimately figure it out. The above is the beginning of the description of the carriage dress shown here on the left.

I might just put Lady Rebecca in this dress at some point in A SEASON OF SEDUCTION… Though I really love the evening dress on the right…sigh. I wonder how it would be received at my husband’s company Christmas party if I wore it…

On Thursday, I’m going to be talking about my continuing challenge to find interesting (and masculine!) variations in men’s fashions of the time!