Extreme devotees of the new fashion discarded the corset completely, or reduced it to a narrow band very like the Greek zoné. Others wore very narrow corsets and records of the time tell of a slump in the previously flourishing staymaker’s trade. That nothing as worn under the dress seems to be largely mythical, as is the uncorroborated story that dresses were damped to make them cling to the bare body, but underwear was often reduced to a mere single narrow petticoat, sometimes colored, under the white dress. For those who believe that one constant feature of fashion is to stress one part or another of the female body in order to attract man’s interest, the characteristic dress of the Regency and Empire provides a startling example. With the slim sheath arrived the first
‘bust improvers’. They were a sufficiently important feature of fashion to spur The Times to say in 1799: ‘The fashion of false bosoms has at least this utility, that it compels our fashionable fair to wear something’. There are descriptions of these items in various contemporary records. They were made of wax or of stuffed cotton and are shown in illustrations. They disappeared, however, with the change in fashion which began about 1820, and did not reappear until well into Victorian days.
The greatest change in feminine underwear to date from this time was the introduction of drawers. Until the late eighteenth century underwear consisted only of smocks or shifts, stays, and the highly important petticoats of all kinds. These were seen hanging below the dresses, and when omen followed suit, their drawers too were visible from about 1790 till 1820. They then disappeared from sight, but those of young girls continued to be seen until well into the second half of the nineteenth century.
I should define the fully developed fat face as a large letter with (a) vertical shading, (b) abrupt modeling, so exaggerated that the thick stroke is nearly half as wide as the letter is high, and (c) certain characteristic forms, all tending to emphasize roundness in the letters; R with a curly tail, short ranging J terminating in a round blob, Q with a tail making a loop within the bowl, S, C and G with barbed terminals and G with a pointed spur. These letterforms are found in all the original fat face designs, they are also characteristic of modern face design but are not found in book faces with anything of the same uniformity. The origin of the fat face is obscure and complex. The largest step in its evolution was the introduction, for advertising purposes, of normal letters enlarged beyond the scale of normal book work. According to Row Mores this innovation was due to the English
typfounder, William Cottrell. His book of 1766 shows a twelve-line pica letter. The idea was taken up by other founders and later letters tend to grow bigger and fatter. The type designs of the reign of George IV reflect the distinctive new phase of the style formed during his Regency. There is less of pompousness and of frivolity and more of solid worth. The revivalism goes deeper and has an unmistakable romantic tinge. One is reminded that the heroic picture is giving place to a type of painting still large and still didactic but grow- ing more domestic. It is the period of Belgravia instead of Regent’s Park. But if type tends to e neater it is also richer, as if Wilkie had something of Etty’s bloom or Mulready something of the verve of Lawrence. It has more weight, too. Here is a classicism not altogether illuminated with the sunlight of Greek rationalism, the heavy forms are
Lead and Lace 7