Talk:Empire silhouette

Historical telescoping
These quotes, in the article as I found it, blithely skip over decades:


 * Josephine Bonaparte was the traditional figurehead for the Empire waistline. When English women saw her dressed in elaborate, skilfully decorated Empire line dresses they rapidly raised the waistline of the long, cylindrical silhouette of the late Renaissance eras. The sixties saw a revival of the Empire silhouette was the sexual revolution encouraged women to rebel away from the constricting corsetry of the early 1900’s.

How would Englishwomen have "seen" Josephine before the Peace of Amiens, when women's clothing styles in England had already changed quite a bit? What do the constricting clothing styles of the 1770's have to do with the "Renaissance"? And the last sentence makes it seem as if the Gibson Girls directly segued into the era of the miniskirt with no transition... Churchh 04:16, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

Emma, Lady Hamilton
I don't want to disparage her, but most testimonies are that the neo-Greek fashions spread from Paris. Churchh (talk) 00:42, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

om-peer
I have never seen or heard the word empire pronounced om-peer, the only reference to this is a 1999 article, I have been unable to substantiate this elsewhere on the net. Removal?? (Marc 14/10/09 @ 13:26) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.63.26.124 (talk) 12:26, 14 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I've now greatly reduced the prominence of this assertion. By the way, a "Spencer" was a particular kind of short jacket which went well with the empire silhouette, but was not a term for neo-classical clothing styles in general, according to what I've seen.  Churchh (talk) 14:25, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

FOR THOSE WHO HAVE NEVER SEEN THE WORD PRONOUNCED om-peer....here's a quote from the American Heritage Dictionary:

Em·pire (om pîr', em' pir) adj. Of, relating to, or characteristic of a neoclassic style, as in clothing or the decorative arts, prevalent in France during the first part of the 19th century. [After the First Empire of France (1804-1815).]

Notice the FIRST CHOICE IS OM-PEER'.

(By the way, the copy/paste did not work so well here, so I'll explain that the the o is short in the primary pronunciation; in the secondary, the e is short and the i is long).

My father was in the garment manufacturing business in the 50's and the ONLY way he ever spoke that word in reference to clothing or arts was OM PEER.

So if you you would like (in my opinion) the definitive authority on American English check out the AHD, Third Edition.

N0w8st8s (talk) 09:49, 28 March 2012 (UTC)n0w8st8s — Preceding unsigned comment added by N0w8st8s (talk • contribs) 08:32, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

1930s
I don't know how much of a revival of the empire silhouette there was in the 1930s, but if there was one, it needs to be discussed separately. Churchh (talk) 17:34, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

1910s
The 1910s did not see a revival of the empire silhouette in any real sense. Instead, there were some style influences, but most women (except for a small aesthetic minority) were still pretty firmly corseted. This can be seen in the book of photographs published in 1908 by the Victoria and Albert Museum, which showed 1908 women wearing actual surviving Regency gowns; the result looked rather stiff and unnatural, and not very similar to the fashions of 1908 or the 1910s. So I can't understand why a mention of the 1910s (when there were only very limited Regency influences on what most women wore, as opposed to theoretical/artistic "fantasies on modern costume") should replace a mention of the 1960s (when ordinary women were commonly wearing real empire silhouette dresses). Churchh (talk) 10:12, 31 January 2018 (UTC)


 * The early 1910s did see a revival of Empire gowns, particularly in evening dress. Reminder that Empire indicates the positioning of the waistline as on or just below the bust, and does not refer to the corsetry that is used beneath the gown - otherwise how could we call 1960s gowns Empire? The article should not be claiming that there was a Regency 'revival' as such, but there were definitely instances of a high waistline from 1908 to 1912 that can only be referred to as Empire (although some were called Directoire gowns after the Directoire period shortly predeceasing the Empire). (talk)


 * The early 1910s saw style influences from the Regency/Empire period, mainly affecting "aesthetic"/"artistic"/"reform" clothing, and only in a rather limited way affecting ordinary clothing worn by ordinary women. The near-Victorian level of corsetry still worn by most women did not much diminish as a result of such style influences.  (It's hard to call something "empire" unless it's worn with undergarments whose goal is NOT to constrict the natural waistline.)
 * There would be nothing wrong with discussing such style influences in a proper context, but to simply replace the mention of the 1960s at the end of the article with the 1910s (as one person editing the article did) is not useful... Churchh (talk) 17:30, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

reign of terror
The reign of terror might have been an influence on certain other aspects of fashion shifts (less display of luxurious ornate stiff fabrics), but it would be very, very difficult to trace the shift of fashion silhouette to it (the chronology isn't quite right to start with). The rediscovery of the virtues of ancient (Roman/Greek) societies was part of the French revolution -- it was why there was an office named "first consul" etc. And before ca. 1790, fashionable women ostentatiously displayed ornate luxurious fabrics in their clothing, while after 1795, fashionable women ostentatiously displayed crisp clean white (often slightly diaphanous) fabrics in their clothing, so ostentatious display didn't disappear, but was redirected into new forms. Churchh (talk) 07:02, 11 July 2018 (UTC)


 * The chronology is actually correct here. The Great Terror occurred in 1794. Note the radical and swift change in silhouette between gowns from 1793 and 1794. There is a jump from stay-shaped bodice-fronts to the dress-bodice-bust seen in Empire styles. Although the waistline had been rising, the Reign of Terror coincides with the swift rise in waistline in women's fashion. Better phrasing ought to be used for the discussion of the rediscovery of Greco-Roman 'virtues' as the factual basis behind this does not match up with the linguistic presentation. Ostentatiousness here is used in accordance to the definition - showy, flashy displays of luxury. Empire styles were not ostentatious in this sense; they were radically more simple in comparison with styles from previous years; corsetry became far simpler; large panniers and hip buckets went out of mode; heavy chintz patterning and thicker fabrics were replaced by softer laces, sheer fabrics, and block colours (sometimes with gentle patterns). It might do to introduce a section on theories behind the causes of this fashion shift as there are undoubtedly several (including fashionable American/colony women popularising the chemise a la Rein earlier in the decade, Neoclassical philosophies, etc.) (talk)




 * In 1794, there were incipient neo-classical influences of often wearing white, and preferring simple crisp fabrics to ornately embroidered ones, but the full empire silhouette as we think of it didn't really yet occur. See the 1795 portrait of Madame Sériziat.  The full Parisian "high Greek" look, strongly influenced by antiquity, didn't really occur until about 1798.  (The term "Directoire" can be rather vague, since it extends from 1795-1799, and so includes the transition from Sériziat to high Greek.)
 * And you don't seem to understand the snobbery of plain white clothing -- middle and upper class women, with their leisurely lifestyles, could keep their garments unspattered and unsweaty, while working-class women who tried to imitate them would have much more difficulty keeping such garments pristine. Sometimes servant girls or women who wore plain white were thought to be presuming above their station in life, and were dismissed (as happened in Jane Austen's Mansfield Park). Churchh (talk) 17:52, 11 August 2018 (UTC)
 * I do understand this, but I feel bound to reiterate my previous point. The fashion of the Georgian era was undoubtedly elaborate and ostentatious in terms of silhouette and fabric choices: the wide panniers, frilled sleeves, pleated robings, and so on are indicative of this. The comparative simplicity of a silhouette which takes inspiration from Greek styles, which were characterised by drapery and single sheets being used rather than fitted garments, is incredibly different from that of a silhouette that stemmed from a desire to 'perfect' the body with mathematical precision. Mansfield Park was also not written until the 1810s, and, in conjunction with its being a work of fiction, ought not to be used as an assured basis of reference.Becsh (talk) 02:56, 22 August 2018 (UTC)


 * Political turmoil in France during the 1790s almost certainly had a (somewhat indirect) influence on drastic fashion changes (which mainly occurred towards the end of the decade), but grimy garments worn by women in tumbrils on the way to their guillotining exerted zero influence on high fashions... Churchh (talk) 17:52, 11 August 2018 (UTC)
 * This is not the claim being made. During the Reign of Terror, aristocrats and members of the bourgeoisie were being guillotined in order to further the cause of the Revolution. Any symbols, edifices, and constructs could be targeted by revolutionaries - the heads of the crowned statues on the facade of Notre-Dame were cut off as a symbol of the Revolution, for example. Likewise, people who continued to wear the clothing of the monarchy and the ruling classes would be viewed as enemies of the people, and would therefore be targeted and likely executed. Wearing certain articles of clothing, such as the rosette, were indicative of a support of the Revolution, and members of the upper class in France, in bids to avoid death, adopted what would become the Empire silhouette in order to align themselves alongside the people to avoid being put under trial. Hence, I am not saying a woman dressed in a simple white dress (which would not have been 'grimy' during an execution anyway) would have influenced fashion on the way to being executed - I am saying that the upper and middle classes were pushed to either wear less noticeably bourgeois styles (in relation to what the people of France would have recognised as bourgeois), or face the guillotine. Naturally, if the upper and middle class begin to wear a certain fashion, in particular if they are French, others will follow. So a fashion more easily attained by the everyday person becomes the norm: white, thin fabrics with little tailoring and little colour are far cheaper and easily worked than brocaded silks with metre-wide panniers and robes à la retroussé.Becsh (talk) 02:56, 22 August 2018 (UTC)
 * I think you are mixing up the French and Russian Revolutions - the French one had nothing against the bourgeoisie, who were indeed running it except for brief moments, though of course fighting between factions. Johnbod (talk) 03:10, 22 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Apologies - I should have stuck to aristocracy! Becsh (talk) 12:15, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

Becsh -- It's true that the tendency to wear pure crisp white garments (as opposed to ornately decorated stiff fabrics) tended to diminish the clothing distance between the aristocracy and the middle class (though it did almost nothing to diminish the distance between the middle class and the working class, as was explained above). But wearing white is not by itself the whole "empire silhouette" -- in fact, it's not any kind of silhouette at all (but a fabric choice). All evidence is that the whole empire silhouette "look" didn't really come together until after 1795, when Robespierre's head had been in the basket (no longer on his shoulders) for over a year. That's part of the reason why the term "Directoire" refers to 1795-1799, and our historical clothing article which covers the empire silhouette is called "1795-1820 in Western Fashion". The wearing of white was initially a trend due to neo-Classical influence, and some women started doing this years before the French Revolution (see gallery above). Very probably there's a kind of indirect relationship between French political turmoil in the 1790s and fashion turmoil in the 1790s, but trying to trace style changes directly and immediately to one particular political event often turns out to be unacceptably simplistic and ultimately unhelpful (with the exception of such oddities as the "à la guillotine -- a red ribbon choker worn around the neck!)... Churchh (talk) 14:31, 5 September 2018 (UTC)


 * You should always be cautious about taking dress fabrics in paintings at face value - obviously painting a small-patterned fabric was a huge extra effort, which artists would often charge more for, and the discrepancy between the plain fabrics in portraits and the patterned fabrics in surviving costumes and textiles is stark. Painters often felt free to invent a colour completely too. Johnbod (talk) 14:53, 5 September 2018 (UTC)


 * Women in England during the 1810s, and probably most of the 1800s decade, certainly wore gowns made from printed fabrics for many everyday occasions, as shown in the 1995 TV miniseries of Pride and Prejudice (of course, sitting for a portrait might not have been an everyday occasion). But the printed elements tended to be small (anything else would have been considered vulgar), and were often widely-separated from each other.  If the basic fabric color was white, then wearing a print dress wasn't necessarily incompatible with overall neoclassically-inspired influences... Churchh (talk) 15:19, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

Quentin Bell
By the way, I came across the second revised edition (1976) of On Human Finery by Quentin Bell. His position is difficult to sum up in a few sentences, but he broadly supports what I said above, in that in his opinion there were only two historical political/military events which had significantly perturbative effects on the Western fashion cycle -- the aftermath of the French revolution ("Napoleonic wars"), and World War I -- but that fashion fluctuations during those periods were not necessarily closely correlated with short-term political events. He flatly denies that the general trend towards neo-classicizing style in women's clothing was "tied to political ideology". Churchh (talk) 18:14, 19 November 2018 (UTC)