PEPYS AND CLOTHES
It is not really necessary for me to remind the reader that one of the best companions in the world, Samuel Pepys, was the son of a tailor. Possibly—I say possibly because the argument is really absurd—he may have inherited his great interest in clothes from his father. You see where the argument leads in the end: that all men to take an interest in clothes must be born tailors’ sons. This is no more true of Adam, who certainly did interest himself, than it is of myself.
Pepys was educated at St. Paul’s School, went to Trinity College, Cambridge, got drunk there, and took a scholarship. He married when he was twenty-two a girl of fifteen, the daughter of a Huguenot. He was born in 1633, three years after the birth of Charles II., of outrageous but delightful memory, and he commenced his Diary in 1660, the year in which Charles entered London, ending it in 1669, owing to his increasing weakness of sight. He was made Secretary to the Admiralty in 1672, in 1673 he became a member of Parliament, was sent to the Tower as a Papist in 1679, and released in 1680. In 1684 he became President of the Royal Society, and he died in 1703, and is buried in St. Olave’s, Crutched Friars.
Pepys mentions, in 1660, his coat with long skirts, fur cap, and buckles on his shoes. The coat was, doubtless, an old-fashioned Cromwellian coat with no waist.
Later he goes to see Mr. Calthrop, and wears his white suit with silver lace, having left off his great skirt-coat. He leaves Mr. Calthrop to lay up his money and change his shoes and stockings.
He mentions his scarlet waistclothes, presumably a sash, and regards Mr. John Pickering as an ass because of his feathers and his new suit made at the Hague. He mentions his linning stockings and wide cannons. This mention of wide cannons leads me to suppose that at this time any ornament at the knee would be called cannons, whether it was a part of the breeches or the stockings, or a separate frill or bunch of ribbons to put on.
On July 1, still in the same year, comes home his fine camlett cloak and gold buttons; also a silk suit. Later he buys a jackanapes coat with silver buttons. Then he and Mr. Pin, the tailor, agree upon a velvet coat and cap (‘the first I ever had’). He buys short black stockings to wear over silk ones for mourning.
On October 7 he says that, long cloaks being out of fashion, he must get a short one. He speaks of a suit made in France for My Lord costing £200. He mentions ladies’ masks.
In 1662 his wife has a pair of peruques of hair and a new-fashioned petticoat of sancenett with black, broad lace. Smocks are mentioned, and linen petticoats.
He has a riding-suit with close knees.
His new lace band is so neat that he is resolved they shall be his great expense. He wears a scallop. In 1663 he has a new black cloth suit, with white linings under all—as the fashion is—to appear under the breeches.
A WOMAN OF THE TIME OF CHARLES II. (1650-1685)
You will notice her hair in ringlets tied with a ribbon, and dressed over a frame at the sides.
The Queen wears a white-laced waistcoat and a crimson short petticoat. Ladies are wearing hats covered with feathers.
God willing, he will begin next week to wear his three-pound periwig.
He has spent last month (October) £12 on Miss Pepys, and £55 on his clothes. He has silk tops for his legs and a new shag gown. He has a close-bodied coat, light-coloured cloth with a gold edge. He sees Lady Castlemaine in yellow satin with a pinner on.
In 1664 his wife begins to wear light-coloured locks.
In 1665 there is a new fashion for ladies of yellow bird’s-eye hood. There is a fear of the hair of periwigs during the Plague. Even in the middle of the Plague Pepys ponders on the next fashion.
In 1666 women begin to wear buttoned-up riding-coats, hats and periwigs.
On October 8 the King says he will set a thrifty fashion in clothes. At this momentous date in history we must break for a minute from our friend Pepys, and hear how this came about. Evelyn had given the King his pamphlet entitled ‘Tyrannus, or the Mode.’ The King reads the pamphlet, and is struck with the idea of the Persian coat. A long pause may be made here, in which the reader may float on a mental cloud back into the dim ages in the East, and there behold a transmogrified edition of his own frock-coat gracing the back of some staid philosopher. Evelyn had also published ‘Mundus Muliebris; or, the Ladies’ Dressing-Room Unlocked.’
So, only one month after the Great Fire of London, only a short time before the Dutch burnt ships in the Medway, only a year after the Plague, King Charles decides to reform the fashion. By October 13 the new vests are made, and the King and the Duke of York try them on. On the fifteenth the King wears his in public, and says he will never change to another fashion. ‘It is,’ says Pepys, ‘a long cassocke close to the body, of black cloth and pinked with white silk under it, and a coat over it, and the legs ruffled with black ribband like a pigeon’s legs.’
The ladies, to make an alteration, are to wear short skirts. Nell Gwynne had a neat ankle, so I imagine she had a hand in this fashion.
On October 17 the King, seeing Lord St. Alban in an all black suit, says that the black and white makes them look too much like magpies. He bespeaks one of all black velvet.
Sir Philip Howard increases in the Eastern fashion, and wears a nightgown and a turban like a Turk.
On November 2 Pepys buys a vest like the King’s.
On November 22 the King of France, Louis XIV., who had declared war against England earlier in the year, says that he will dress all his footmen in vests like the King of England. However, fashion is beyond the power of royal command, and the world soon followed in the matter of the Persian coat and vest, even to the present day.
Next year, 1667, Pepys notes that Lady Newcastle, in her velvet cap and her hair about her ears, is the talk of the town. She wears a number of black patches because of the pimples about her mouth, she is naked-necked (no great peculiarity), and she wears a just au corps, which is a close body-coat.
Pepys notices the shepherd at Epsom with his wool-knit stockings of two colours, mixed. He wears a new camlett cloak. The shoe-strings have given place to buckles, and children wear long coats.
In 1668 his wife wears a flower tabby suit (‘everybody in love with it’). He is forced to lend the Duke of York his cloak because it rains. His barber agrees to keep his periwig in order for £1 a year. He buys a black bombazin suit.
In 1669 his wife wears the new French gown called a sac; he pays 55s. for his new belt. His wife still wears her old flower tabby gown. So ends the dress note in the Diary.