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Updated: May 27, 2025
Clad respectively in crimson, white and blue, these small scions stand up in their ruffs and fardingales in dimpled serenity, squaring their infantine stomachers at the spectator with an innocence, a dignity, a delightful grotesqueness, which make the picture a thing of close truth as well as of fine decorum.
Ah! but thou art great folk, and, as Dent hath said, such people 'spend their time in tricking and trimming, pricking and pinning, pranking and pouncing, girding and lacing and braving up themselves in most exquisite manner; these doubled and redoubled ruffles, these strouting fardingales, long locks and fore tufts; it was never a good world since starching and steeling, buskes and whalebones, supporters and rebatoes, full moons and hobbyhorses came into use. I doubt not that Father Pomphrey himself will demur at such cruelty."
The fashion of red stockings, so much cried down, dispraised, and followed, is on the eve of departing, to be consigned to the family tomb of 'all the fashions, where sleep in peace the ruffs and hoops, and fardingales of past centuries; and "All its beauty, all its pomp, decays Like Courts removing, or like ending plays."
The broad and rather clumsy chintz sofas and settees of the reign of George III. contrasted at intervals with the tall-backed chairs of a far more distant generation, when ladies in fardingales and gentlemen in trunk- hose seem never to have indulged in horizontal positions.
The burning of the Globe Theatre an event due, by the way, to the results of the passion for illusion that distinguished Shakespeare's stage-management has unfortunately robbed us of many important documents; but in the inventory, still in existence, of the costume-wardrobe of a London theatre in Shakespeare's time, there are mentioned particular costumes for cardinals, shepherds, kings, clowns, friars, and fools; green coats for Robin Hood's men, and a green gown for Maid Marian; a white and gold doublet for Henry the Fifth, and a robe for Longshanks; besides surplices, copes, damask gowns, gowns of cloth of gold and of cloth of silver, taffeta gowns, calico gowns, velvet coats, satin coats, frieze coats, jerkins of yellow leather and of black leather, red suits, grey suits, French Pierrot suits, a robe 'for to goo invisibell, which seems inexpensive at 3 pounds, 10s., and four incomparable fardingales all of which show a desire to give every character an appropriate dress.
Lord Orford, while his relative was writing all kinds of brilliant things, collecting antiquities, worshipping the genius of cracked china, and bowing down before fardingales and topknots of the time of Francis I., in the Temple of Strawberry Hill, was forming a niche for his fame in his dog-kennel, and immortalizing himself by the help of his hounds.
When the queen arrived, her hair was arranged A LA NEGLIGENCE, a mode declared mighty pretty; but presently a fashion came in vogue of wearing "false locks set on wyres to make them stand at a distance from the head; as fardingales made the clothes stand out in Queen Elizabeth's reign."
"Anxious, no doubt, to set herself off to advantage, she hath made free with the countess's wardrobe. Your own favourite attendant, Sarah Swarton, hath often arranged herself in your finest fardingales, kirtlets, and busk-points, as Diego will tell you. Is it not so, rascal?" "'T is precisely as my lord hath stated, my lady," said the Spaniard to Lady Roos.
The broad and rather clumsy chintz sofas and settees of the reign of George III. contrasted at intervals with the tall-backed chairs of a far more distant generation, when ladies in fardingales and gentlemen in trunk-hose seem never to have indulged in horizontal positions.
"Supporters, pooters, fardingales, above the loynes to weare;" and the guardainfante, the oval hoop peculiar to Spain, was in full blow; and the robes of a dowager might have curtained the tun of Heidelberg, and the powers of Velasquez were baffled by the perverse fancy of "Fribble, the woman's tailor."
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