‘CUROSY REMARKS ON THE LAST NEW FASHIONS.
‘The City of London is now, indeed, most splendid in its buildings and extent; London is carried into the country; but never was it more deserted.
‘A very, very few years ago, and during the summer, the dresses of the wives and daughters of our opulent tradesmen would furnish subjects for the investigators of fashion.
‘Now, if those who chance to remain in London take a day’s excursion of about eight or ten miles distance from the Metropolis, they hear the innkeepers deprecating the steamboats, by which they declare they are almost ruined: on Sundays, which would sometimes bring them the clear profits of ten or twenty pounds, they now scarce produce ten shillings.
‘No; those of the middle class belonging to Cockney Island must leave town, though the days are short, and even getting cold and comfortless; the steamboats carrying them off by shoals to Margate and its vicinity.
‘The pursuit after elegant and superior modes of dress must carry us farther; it is now from the rural retirement of the country seats belonging to the noble and wealthy that we must collect them.
‘Young ladies wear their hair well arranged, but not quite with the simplicity that prevailed last month; during the warmth of the summer months, the braids across the forehead were certainly the best; but now, when neither in fear of heat or damp, the curls again appear in numerous clusters round the face; and some young ladies, who seem to place their chief pride in a fine head of hair, have such a multitude of small ringlets that give to what is a natural charm all the poodle-like appearance of a wig.
‘The bows of hair are elevated on the summit of the head, and confined by a comb of tortoise-shell.
‘Caps of the cornette kind are much in fashion, made of blond, and ornamented with flowers, or puffs of coloured gauze; most of the cornettes are small, and tie under the chin, with a bow on one side, of white satin ribbon; those which have ribbons or gauze lappets floating loose have them much shorter than formerly.
‘A few dress hats have been seen at dinner-parties and musical amateur meetings in the country, of transparent white crape, ornamented with a small elegant bouquet of marabones.