LA BELLE ASSEMBLEE. FASHIONS For MARCH, 1806. EXPLANATION OF THE PRINTS OF FASHION. or at the ball; a circumstance arising principally from the choice of the colours. The pale yellow colour, which is extremely elegant in the day for beautiful women, appears soiled in the evening, and tends very much to diminish the glow, and impair the brilliancy of the complexion. Dress is become so astonishingly capricious, that a lady is not considered fashionable, if she appears in public two successive days with the same bonnet. Some variety must be given, either by super-adding fresh ornaments, or new-modelling the old. The colours of bonnets and gowns are so often varied, that the No. 6. COURT DRESS BANDEAU, crape and gown which corresponds with a bonnet one day, gold. No. 7. VELVET CAP, colour to fancy. PARISIAN DRESSES. No. 8. Cloth Great Coat, in the Hussar style. LONDON FASHIONS FOR MARCH. The more elegant the taste, the more superior the beauty of a lady, the less she has occasion for ornaments; her dress, therefore, should he simple and unaffected. This incontestable truth should convince our London Fashionables, that the only improvement in dress consists in a superadded simplicity and gracefulness, and not in a singularity of costume of any kind whatever. The dress that appears the most elegant in the day, would ill become the evening, at the opera, No. I. Vol. I. is upon the next, contradictory to real taste and elegance. Our most favourite promenades have not been, during the last month, strikingly conspicuous for the display of dress; we have, how ever, seen some very graceful Turkish-slate coloured velvet turbans, ornamented with fur of the same colour; they have a rich effect, and are confined to the nobility, and the more aspiring classes of fashion. The most prevalent pelisses are made of black velvet, with a flounce of deep rich black lace; this last walking dress is worn by all kinds of fashionables, which renders it common, and is abandoned by those who pretend to real taste and novelty. All kinds of bonnets, from a straw to a black velvet turban, are worn with black velvet pelisses; the latter turban is sometimes ornamented with a black feather, in which case it must hang gracefully over the forehead; it has then some claims to attraction, when worn by an elegant woman.Straw turbans with two pale roses, one blown, and the other a bud, is a spring hat, and likely to become fashionable: in short, velvet and straw bonnets, are the only head-dresses worn for walk- || clining towards the opposite corner of the hat. ing. Dome crowns and gipsey straw hats are likely to be the most prevalent fashion for the ensuing month. The ladies in the boxes of the opera, display, in general, much elegance; many wear the sleeves of their gowns cut in the Spanish style; these kind of sleeves are only seen with full dress gowns; white muslin gowns tastefully embroidered, are very general. - A white or light blue satin turban, ornamented with white down, contribute much to the elegance of this half dress. Velvet mantles grace the shoulders of the London Fashionables, and when elegantly drapered on the back, are very tasteful and striking. Many ladies wear at balls, and fashionable assemblies, their hair fancifully dressed; a neat small square comb, ornamented with pearls, is placed in the front; the hair thus dressed, precludes the necessity of any other species of head-dresses. Necklaces are fashionable, and cannot be too monastic; these kinds of necklaces are only worn in half full-dress; red coral necklaces, with a small watch set in pearls, attached to a string of red corals, are becoming fashionable. White tippets are very general; they are considered elegant and necessary; muffs are scarcely ever seen; fashion requires them to be white, when they are adopted. White or rose-coloured silk stockings, with a narrow clock, not embroidered, are the only silk stockings that adorn the feet of the models of fashion. The dress of a Lady is beginning to be less sumptuous, of course it is less expensive. Lace is now almost rejected, except in the embellishment of mantles. Ridicules have completely perished, and the pocket is at length restored to its usual place. Laced half-boots, in the Chinese style, are fashionable for walking. PARISIAN FASHIONS, Head dress à la Ninon, are more numerous than ever, and resemble, with an encreasing exactness, their true model, Petitor's enamel; which is to be seen at the Napoleon Museum. On each side of the face, there are now four, five, and even eight curls of hair formed into the shape of a cork-screw; and, behind, the hair is collected, sinoothed, or circularly involved, instead of being made up into a cabbage, and plaited into the figure of cork-screws. The grounds of full dress college-caps are ornamented with steel. Full dress hats are almost all turned up on one side with a loop or a button; behind the turned-up part of the hat is a feather which crosses the hat with the point of the feather in Hats and small bonnets are, in general, made of two colours; satin stripes of the same colour as the edging form the ornament of the crowns of bonnets. The ribband in the front, if any be worn, takes place of the plaited border, and is cut into Artichoke leaves. Black velvet for hats and small bonnets, is as much worn as dark blue and brown cloths are for great coats. A long steel buckle, of an oval form, confines the velvet band round the crowns of small bonnets, which makes a conspicuous ornament for the front of this kind of bonnets. White, grey, pale rose, nut, chocolate, dark green, and dark yellow velvets are always fashionable for collegecaps. Some grounds of full dress hats, of satin or velvet, are embroidered with the whitest silver that can be procured; the design is a kind of star, which is embellished with figured leaves instead of rays. At the Milliner's, the satin for hats and the generality of ribbands, are a style of delicate rose colour; however, white satin and ribbands are likely to become fashionable. The hats of the Millinery Misses have a tuft in the front, which descends on the eye-brows; but the ears remain entirely uncovered. Velvet, worked in white, and white ribbands, amply embroidered with velvet, have been much in request during the last few days. Some Milliners use dark yellow for the lining of black bonnets. Yellow is used to ornament black velvet collegecaps. Green pistachios are used with white. Feathers are much in fashion, they are worn both in full and half full dress. On many hair headdresses the bunch of flowers is worn small, placed behind the head, and frequently concealed in the hollow of the comb. Bengal roses, or moss roses, are still most in vogue. Florists are not satisfied with imitating the Bengal rose, and the scarcest flowers of the East; they are now endeavouring to extend their art to kitchen garden plants, which they colour to the whim of the purchaser. The honey-suckle, which is also a flower much in vogue at Balls, is worn of all fancy colours, such as rose, black, and dead leaves; there are some even made to resemble oak. Hair head-dresses are very simple; they consist of hair smoothed at the sides, with a braid of hair formed into a cabbage, and a tuft of curls, or some curls hanging on the forehead; this head-dress is considered particularly neat and elegant. Hats, ornamented with fur, would have been very general, had not the late incessant rains prevented the Amazonians from gracing the promenades. The last fashion for the above hats is quite novel, they are made of a fawn colour; the brims are raised on each side to the height of the shape, and are cut round to resemble a fan. Gowns for Balls are short, and in general of a white or rose-colour; but are always made of crape. A single ribband is worn round the waist, has long ends, and hangs in the front. A ribband, gathered tastefully, trims the inferior edging of the gown; ; the same kind of trimming sets off the ends of sleeves. A detached bunch of flowers is worn above the gathering of the sleeves; and two large bunches of the same flowers are fixed a little above the knees, the other a little above the inferior border of the gown. Head-dresses à la Titus, are in general seen at Balls; they have no kind of ornaments. Long or short full-dressed gowns are almost all made of rose, white, or chamois satin, à l'Espagnole. The pelisses for dress are made à la Turque, without collars, and are not crossed over the breasts. Five buttons may be worn on the front of a ball gown, and a sloping garland of flowers may also A be worn instead of flowers. The ribbands are always white, whatever kinds are worn. bunch of flowers at the side relieves the gown from the necessity of a trimming of flowers. Fashion suggests violets for the side of gowns. The breasts are ornamented with large hanging lace, which is a fashion extremely prevalent. Of all kinds of combs, the most adopted are those which are ornamented above the gold with a detached row of pearls. Ear-rings made of pearls, forming a bunch of grapes, and these forming serpents made of gold, or enamelled gold, are the most general. It is fashionable to wear a shawl over a great coat, pelisse, or a velvet Mameluke. The most elegant velvet for Mamelukes is light blue; but many made of black velvet are worn. Laced veils are worn in all their extent, suspended before the face; muslin veils, on the contrary, are worn divided and turned on one side of the head. An embroidered muslin ridicule is festooned with lace: we have seen some cherry-coloured velvet made into ridicules; they are richly embroidered in gold. OBSERVATION ON FASHONS, As they appeared to an Observer on Sunday last, during a Promenade in Hyde Park. THE genial mildness of an unusually fine spring, which has already decked vegetation with the budding promise of luxuriant verdure, has also banished from fashionable costume those cumbrous draperies and gross furry ornements which so recently distinguished the prevailing taste, and were continued, through one of the mildest winters ever experienced in our atmosphere, as though British beauty were shivering under the chilling influence of Siberian skies. The Promenade, in Hyde Park, the only general one, where beauty and fashion now deign to exhibit their combined attractions by daylight, was on Sunday last literally crouded by both; and the rival titles to rank and admiration were displayed in a fascinating contest for the palm of experience. The dresses of the Fashionables were, for the most part, of that character called Demi-saison; the bear-muff and tippet were visible only with a few Grisettes and Dowagers of the Bourgeois. The prevailing head-dress of the leading Ton, were beaver hats à la turban, with a light trimming of snow-white swansdown; also beavers of what are termed the Spanish and Jockey forms, of various colours, were still much worn; as were bonnets and hats of straw, of different shapes; the most elegant were those gracefully turned up in front, lined with various coloured velvets, and otherwise ornamented with artificial flowers or silk trimming, agreeably to the fancy of the wearers. But the head-dresses most nouvelle and elegant, and worn by Ladies of the highest Fashion were formed of velvets, and were principally hats or turbans, turned up with different colours of the same fabric, and trimmed with swansdown or light furs; and some which wore a superior air of novelty, were made with a drooping peak or purse, falling down behind like the undress cap of an hussar, and ornamented with silk tassels, and a small ostrich feather in front, of the same colour as the cap, which attracted much admiration. Pelisses, and robes of velvet cloth and silk, continue to be much worn, but the most fashionable and elegant were those of dove-coloured velvet, worn loose and open before, embroidered in silk of the same colour down the front, with a running foliage of vine, or olive leaves. Spencers of silk and velvet were also much worn, and some few shawls were perceptible. By the way, it is only wonderful that such an article of dress as the shawl should ever have found its path to fashionable adoption, in the va. rious circles of British taste. In its form, nothing can be more opposite to every principle of refined taste, or carry less the appearance of that elegant simplicity at which it aims. It is calculated much more to conceal and vulgarize, than to display or regulate the contour of an elegant form, and is totally destitute of every idea of ease, elegance, or dignity. Whatever charms it may have for the sickly taste of the tawny BELLES of the torrid zone, nothing but that "witching beauty" which occasionally veils itself in the rusticity and homeliness (like the Sun, its mists and clouds) that it may dazzle anew, with the refulgent splendor of its taste and charms, could ren. der even tolerable the introduction of an habiliment, which turns any female, NOT beautiful and elegant, into an absolute Dowdy. It is the very contrast to the flowing elegance of Grecian costume, whose light and transparent draperies so admirably display the female form; and it restores something almost as disgusting, in the upper part of female dress, as the double fortified hoop, and the nine-times-quilted petticoat of the last century. As to the Beaux Garcons, little of novelty appeared in their dresses to attract notice. From the almost universal prevalence of boots and lower garments, all would seem to have just come from the manege; though nine-tenths of those jockeys may be fairly classed with the dismounted cavalry. The only novelty observable with beaux of the promenade is, that their hats, from the order of the broad-slouch, are again rapidly returning to the opposite extreme: so that a fashionable jockey bonnet now bears strong resemblance to the helmet of Mambrino, celebrated in the adventures of the renowned Don Quixote; to whose equally celebrated steed Rozinante might justly be assimilated many of the bits of blood which kept up the dash of rotten-row on this occasion. PARISIAN NOVELTIES AND CUSTOMS. Presents of porcelain, are at this time considered the most elegant trifle. One sees a breakfast cup, entitled "The Gift of Love." On ach side of the cup are inscriptions relative to the subject. On the right side, "Love revenges Perfidy." On the left, "Love repays Constancy." And the middle, "A promise of an hundred kisses payable to the Bearer." Happy the petit maître who can present such bill when he finds pretty women that will indorse them. The dancing parties are those which present the greatest variety of fashion. Two uniform dresses are enjoined, one for the ladies, who are spectators merely, and one for those who are performers. When they go as spectators, the ladies clothe themselves most richly. A gown of velvet or satin, with a fine train, covered with gold embroidery, and a head-dress to correspond; but those who dance are very differently drest, light and sylphic; scarcely are their tender forms covered with a fold of crape; no train, no fullness on the hips, no encumbering ornaments. By this contrast in the dresses, a Gentleman can distinguish, at first sight, the Lady who chuses to dance, from her who sacrifices the pleasure to the rage of gaudy show. London: Printed by and for J. BELL, Southampton Street, Strand. |