Yes, I noticed that right off. And said to myself that the Heideloff plate and Seriziat portrait are way too early for Regency. Well, unless one is dressing as Jane Austen's mom! And Mamma Austen would probably not have been caught dead in any of the three "bonnets" shown. I suggested to Dover Publications a few years' back when the craze for all things Jane Austen was at its height that they might want to consider publishing a selection of plates from "The Gallery of Fashion" due to its rarity, beauty, and the general ignorance of fashion development between 1785 and 1805. A good deal of that time being passed over, just like the fashions of World War I, is that they are seen as transitional and awkward to modern eyes.
I think often that 1790-1810 fashions are just all grouped under Regency, just because the general public is supposedly too dumb to know what Revolutionary, Directorie, or Empire fashion is. I can hear the pitch now: "Hey, just group it all under Regency, because enough people will think "Regency Novel" or Jane Austen or something if they are sophisticated enough to know what Regency roughly means." And snickers from us who know that "Regency" is 1810-1820 strictly speaking. Or might even ask which "Regency" Cindy Abel _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list [email protected] http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
