The chapter ‘A dress fit for a queen’ in my book Crime and Prejudice delves into the world of fashion – and Molly Houses.

Jane Austen took a practical interest in clothes and hairstyles. She wrote to her sister Cassandra, “I have made myself two or three caps to wear of evenings since I came home, and they save me a world of torment as to hairdressing, which at present gives me no trouble beyond washing and brushing, for my long hair is always plaited up out of sight, and my short hair curls well enough to want no papering. I have had it cut lately by Mr. Butler” (1 December 1798).

Her cap-making was obviously a success, because the following June she teased Cassandra: “I am quite pleased with Martha and Mrs. Lefroy for wanting the pattern of our caps, but I am not so well pleased with your giving it to them. Some wish, some prevailing wish, is necessary to the animation of everybody's mind, and in gratifying this you leave them to form some other which will not probably be half so innocent.”

In regard to the decoration of other hats, she wrote, “Flowers are very much worn, and fruit is still more the thing. Elizabeth has a bunch of strawberries, and I have seen grapes, cherries, plums, and apricots.” Both fruit and flowers were artificial, and a few days later, she observed, “I cannot help thinking that it is more natural to have flowers grow out of the head than fruit.”

In 1800, Jane Austen noted, “my hair was at least tidy, which was all my ambition." I have imagined Kitty Bennet as taking a more devoted approach to fashion. In fact, we learn in Pride and Prejudice that it is the only thing that distracts her from mooning after soldiers: “[Kitty and Lydia’s] eyes were immediately wandering up the street in quest of the officers, and nothing less than a very smart bonnet, indeed, or a really new muslin in a shop window, could recall them.”

In my chapter ‘A dress fit for a queen’, Kitty and her friend Denny follow up on a line from Pride and Prejudice and dress their male friend Chamberlayne in women’s clothes for a laugh. However, I’ve made Kitty aware of some of the pitfalls of slavishly following fashion: “We searched ‘The Mirror of the Graces’ for ideas for his face, and we set a nap on his cheek with a little bit of pomatum that had wax in it, and mixed it with carmine to make a perfect rouge. Now his cheeks were pink and we had not used any thing harmful. We were mindful of the Countess of Coventry, who died of wearing make-up full of lead. Then we drew a black line on the edges of his eyelids and put some Rigge’s Liquid Bloom on his lips. It is made of Damask roses and it made his lips pink and shiny, so that I thought any one would want to kiss them, though I am sorry to say it has not happened to me yet when I wear it.”

Chamberlayne looks very well in his fashionable gown, so much so that he attracts the attention of a married man and strikes up a flirtation.

Mixed into this story is the language of the Mollies, men whom Paul Baker in his book Fabulosa says were “feminine and interested in sex with men”. These men frequented Molly Houses, which Baker describes as “clubs and taverns where men of different classes could socialise and pick each other up”. Mollies referred to each other as ‘queens’, and had a vocabulary of their own, which marked them as members of a clandestine social group, and from which I borrowed ‘stampers’ (shoes), ‘shap’ (hat) and ‘poll’ (wig). Readers of Paul Baker’s book might enjoy spotting other, racier, Molly words hidden in my story.

Finally, a note on top hats, which make their appearance in Caroline Bingley’s chapter at the end of Crime and Prejudice. Top hats abound in paintings and sketches depicting Regency England, and to my untutored eye, they look pretty much the same. However, the earliest use of the term ‘top hat’ noted in the Oxford English Dictionary is 1864. I therefore consulted Lloyd's Treatise on Hats on Project Gutenberg, originally published in 1819, and of the twenty-four headpieces on display, I chose the evocatively named ‘bang-up’. This hat, we learn, “is the very master-piece of inventive taste, wherein all admiration must of necessity centre, having not only in its general appearance a bold and manly front, but a pleasing harmony of parts, all tending to produce an agreeable union of taste and utility”. What more could anyone wish for?

If you’ve enjoyed this blog post and would like to learn more, I can recommend Jane Austen’s letters, ‘Lloyd's Treatise on Hats’ (check out the amazingly full title below) and Paul Baker’s book. They’re all fabulosa!

References

Austen, J. ( 1796–1817). The letters of Jane Austen. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/42078/42078-h/42078-h.htm

Baker, P. (2019). Fabulosa! The story of Polari, Britain’s secret gay language. Reaktion Books.

Lloyd, R. (1819). Lloyd's treatise on hats with twenty-four engravings. Containing novel delineations of his various shapes, shewing the manner in which they should be worn, the sort of face and person best suited to each particular hat, and rules for their preservation; to which is added, the whole process of hat-making; together with the customs and regulations of journeymen hatters, and other useful information (2^nd ed.). https://www.gutenberg.org/files/56103/56103-h/56103-h.htm