On one of my perambulations through the Museum of London’s on-line collection of prints I came across a series of fashion plates from the 1780’s through to the turn of the century showing ladies head gear, on a year-by-year basis. Some of them are so wonderful as to defy description, others are so atrocious that I am not sure which is the front view and which the back. They are however worthy of being repeated just so that one has the right image in the mind’s eye when considering what it was like to be truly fashionable or a la mode in the latter years of the 18th Century. For my money, I would go with 1786 any day….
Here goes (with thanks to the Museum of London website):
Fashions for 1790
Fashion for 1796
and to end with, the very different styles in the new century:
