Very little need be said about their dress, the illustrations throughout the book show its different phases. The Regent, of course, set the fashions, for tailoring, and building, were his hobbies; but even he could not do anything against the dictum of George Bryan Brummell. When he retired in poverty to Calais, in 1816, he left the field entirely to the Regent. There were some who gained a nickname from some eccentricity in costume as "Blue Hanger" (Lord Coleraine), or "Pea-green Haynes"—but they were not many.
The principal variation in men's attire, at this period, was the way in which they clothed their legs. Breeches and boots were now eschewed by fashionable men, and their place was taken by the pantaloon, made of some elastic stuff, generally "stockinette," fitting tightly to the leg, and after 1814 by the Cossack trouser: an example of both being given in two pictures of Lord Petersham, a distinguished leader of fashion, who married Miss Foote, the actress, and afterwards became Earl of Harrington. Over the trousered picture are these lines:—
"I'll prove these Cossack pantaloons
(To one that's not a Goose)
Are like two Continental towns
Called Too-long and Too-loose."
A PORTRAIT (LORD PETERSHAM).
(Published January 10, 1812, by H. Humphrey.)
LORD PETERSHAM. 1815.