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FASHIONS

For APRIL, 1806.

EXPLANATION OF THE PRINTS OF FASHION.

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Nɔ. 2.—A FASHIONABLE MORNING NEGLIGE. A gown of India striped muslin made with a full collar to button close to the neck, and down the front, with long sleeves. A half mob cap, with a yellow crown. This figure is represented reclining on a fashionable sopha.

No. 3. AN EVENING FULL DRESS. A Mame'uke robe of white crape, trimmed round the bosom and the bottom with slate coloured Delta trimming; worn over a white sarsnet slip; the sleeves short and full; rich clasp; a half handkerchief crossed over the bosom, with a cornelian broach; turban of slate coloured crape, and gold aigrette; white kid gloves and shoes; ridicule of white velvet and gold.

PARISIAN FASHIONS FOR MARCH. No. 4.-AN ELEGANT MORNING WALKING

DRESS.

No. 5.-A HALF FULL DRESS.

A bonnet made of pink ribbands, trimmed with a tuft of ribbands in the front, exhibiting only a few curls over the forehead; a plain muslin gown, with sleeves chequered with pink ribbands, and the gown ornamented in the front also with pink ribbands, the breasts trimmed with puckered net lace, and a pink sash, with Short ends hanging behind; an Indian shawl, with Turkish embroidery; white satin shoes, and perkale gloves: this half dress has been considered equally simple and elegant.

No 6.-A COMPLETE FULL DRESS.
The hair à l'Egyptienne, two rows of beads
round the forehead, with a comb, and fancy or
naments gracefully displayed behind the hair,
which is plaited in the shape of a cork-screw; a
white pearl neck-lace fastened in the front with
a large antique stone; an Austerlitz robe of nan-
kin-coloured sarsnet, sleeves ornamented with
blue sarsnet, and gracefully embroidered in the
front with the same, into fanciful knots and
plaits; white satin shoes, and Albion net-gloves;
an handsome fine shade in the right hand. This
fashionable full dress, which has only made its
appearance since the return of Napoleon, is
esteemed equally elegant in its peculiar fashion
and display, and no less complimentary to the
Court.

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS ON THE
FASHIONS FOR APRIL.

Lent has precluded the display of fashionable novelties; the London élégantes have not, how

A straw gypsey hat, tied under the chin with white satin ribband, embellished in the front with wild blue flowers. A muslin gown, ornamented with knotted work, short puffed up sleeves, just covering the shoulders, and a puckered trimming round the breasts, and hanging over the shoulders, with a light-blue kersey-ever, permitted themselves to remain inactive; mere shawl, edged with a Turkish border, and the shawl tastefully drapered; white gloves, and brown shoes, compose one of the most fashionable walking dresses the Parisian élégantes have adopted this spring.

No. II. Vol. I.

many head-dresses, and gowns of elegance, have been invented for the present month, which promise to become prevalent among every rank of fashion. Brown velvet bandeaux, ornamented with an antique set in gold, looped on the

right side with a gold broach, and closed behind || sionally. The Bronti muff and tippet, made of

with a gold clasp, is an elegant ornament for full dress. The bandeaux are made of dark brown scarlet, or slate-coloured velvets. An opera cap, consisting of a laced veil, formed into a kind of turban, with a wreath of half dead laurel leaves, an hyacinth in the middle, edged over the forehead with swansdown, and an handsome comb placed behind the head, is particularly elegant. An half dress cap, made of fine muslin, lined with pink sarsnet, and the muslin ornamented with knotted work, forming a hat on one side, trimmed with sarsnet on the other, and embellished with a rosette in front, has some claims to notice. The Bronti hat, made of silver grey embossed velvet, with a small band of the same, and a row of beads of the same colour, is esteemed elegant; a feather to match must be worn with this hat. A full dress gown, made of light blue sarsnet, trimmed round the neck with Vandyke lace; the ends of the sleeves trimmed with the same to correspond, and the waist encircled with the same coloured ribband, and a bow behind, is both novel and fashionable. A light blue bonnet, much turned up in the front, and a plume of white feathers edged with blue, placed tastefully in the front; the rim ornamented with a row of pearl beads, is worn with the above full dress. A pink full dress gown, made of pink Albion net, and in the fashion of the gown described above, but worn with long sleeves made of white lace, is considered elegant; a pink sarsnet bonnet, made also like the former, but with a white plume of feathers only, must be ranked amongst the most modern and tasty fashions. A white figured sarsnet dress, with a long sweeping train; plain square front trimmed round with net-lace, or swansdown, has been much admired.

The Circassian straw hat is one of the most elegant hats that has been introduced; it is a Spring hat, and will be universally worn by all distinguished fashionables. This elegant hat has some resemblance to a gypsey-hat, but has a fanciful crown, and is ornamented with lilac, salmon, and other spring coloured ribbands. An half gypsey straw hat, tied down with yellow or green ribbands, is fashionable. A full dress laced turban, with a rosette of lace, ornamented with gold-spangled net, an aigrette in front, with a large row of muslin confining the whole, and a row of gold, intermixed with rosette lace, and spangled net hanging tastefully on one side of the forehead, has a rich effect. A straw hat in the turban style, embellished in front with primroses, or a bunch of mignionette and yellow roses, and a loose bow of white ribbands, is worn in the morning. This hat is worn ornamented in the front with lilies, primroses and violets occa

scarlet feathers, are quite novel, and are worn only by the higher order of fashionables During the unfavourable weather, white satin tippets, interlined with wadding, and edged all round with white swansdown, have been tolerably general.

The prevailing colours are light blue, pink, green, lilac; indeed all spring colours; but the uncertainty of fashion at present renders it impossible to pronounce the most general colour. Light blue appears to have the preference.

ON THE USE OF ROUGE.

To the EDITOR of LA BELLE ASSEMBLEE.
SIR,

IT has much surprised me of late to find that on the toilet of our ladies, the rouge box is become perhaps the most essential attendant. Formerly the artifice of painting was used only to repair the ravages which the heavy hand of time had made in the features of some antiqua ted coquet; but now it is resorted to as an ornament, rather than a remedy, by the young, and even unmarried women: warin water is as constantly called for as their night-cap, and their face and their gown are equally to be put off before they lie down in their bed. Feeling then a very lively interest in whatever may advance or lessen the happiness of my fair countrywomen, I cannot refrain from crying out against the progress of so pernicious a custom. I should wish much to remind them what their poet Thomson says of his Lavinia

-Loveliness

"Need not the foreign aid of ornament,
"But is, when unadorn'd, adorn'd the most."

And indeed, I believe, I may venture to say, that of any ornament, rouge is the least respect. d among the male sex. Would it be possible to picture the disgust of a new married husband, fancying that he was about to clasp in his arms the very bloom of youth, who found in the first salute of his bride, that that bloom with her was as transient as her breath, and that his lips, instead of feasting on that soft and tender down of youth, were besmeared with an abominable and nauseous red powder? Might he not appropriately address her in some such words as the epigram

"I lov'd thee beautiful and fair,
"And plighted an eternal vow
"So alter'd is thy face and air,

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"Twere perjury to love thee now !"

I believe rouge came, like many of our worse fashions, from France, the gay land of trifles and

dissipation; but how often and how seriously have we had to lament the absurdity of introducing fashions adapted to a very different climate; a French woman of haut ton will clothe herself in little more than her gown, but we do not live under a meridian calculated for such a thin attire. Agues, rheumatisms, and a long train of tropical calamities, have been the sad consequences of our imitation hitherto. A French woman may use her rouge in order to relieve the sallow hue of her sun-burnt face, and to brighten a complexion which has seldom any roses to boast. But surely an English woman, whose beauty is the praise and admiration of the world, and the pride and boast of her countrymen, can little need, in any case, to resort to so wretched an expedient of increasing it. In France too this custom universally obtains, and is universally acknowledged. It would be ridiculous, therefore, for a French woman to abstain from it. Where errors become universal, they become less venial in the individual offender; if indeed they do not seriously militate against the laws of the creation, it is our duty perhaps so far to comply with them, that we disturb not the peace of society by our singular rejection. In England, however, no woman I believe confesses that she uses rouge; is of course little better than a deceit, and on that account alone should be banished far, very far, from this land of integrity. I would speak both to the fair and to those whom the world calls plain. To the former, indeed, I will not allow any plea, much less the plea of necessity; and the latter, I am sure, would have much better chances of pleasing (the great end for which we all, but women more than all, are formed in society), if they would shew themselves honestly as God's creatures, somewhat worse ordained than their fellows, without endeavouring or attempting fantastically to conceal those defects, which are at last but defects of the imagination, and to a man of sense scarcely defects at all. Such a man, indeed, who has mixed at all with the world, hopes to meet with that

"Something than beauty dearer, should he look, "Or on the mind or mind-illumin'd face."

And where can any mind of good principle be shewn so much, as in a plain and well arranged exterior, or so little as in the adoption of unadvised and deceitful ornaments: an elegant neatness of dress is a sort of passport to a man's heart-it carries with it the appearance of innocence, and by some association of ideas recals to our imagination the pure and untainted joys of pastoral life; it serves to attune the mind to that calm and soothing pitch of harmony, when the

powers of love have their greatest force. I would conjure, therefore, my pretty country-women, by all their hopes of a husband, not to persist in a practice which cannot fail to be injurious to their prospects in the highest degree-they will, I am sure, agree with me, that no man would wish to marry a painted Jezabel-and they will remember how seldom in the conversation, and indeed opinion, of mankind, these two words are separated when the first can be applied.

It may, perhaps, be said, that those who have now used rouge for some time cannot leave it off, without the fear of exposing themselves-an answer, if it were correct, whence I might alone prove its evil qualities. A very few years have past, since the heads of our young country women were plastered and pomatumed and filled with hair powder, even before they left the boarding-school-that ornament is now entirely laid aside, but it has not prevented their hair from flowing in these days, in tresses as luxuriant and as graceful as ever did the locks of their mother Eve-no evil consequence, no injury arose from the adoption or abandonment of that fashion-nor indeed is it the fact, that the features, from a short use of rouge, are materially injured; the eye that has been used to see them under a different shade will fancy a hundred defects on the first day, which will grow less on the second, and on the succeeding days vanish altogether-we feel awkward in new dresses and in new situations, but we soon grow familiar with ourselves. I remember to have been told by a young academic, that when he first walked forth in his cap and gown, he fancied every one in the street to be looking at him, when, perhaps, he would have been a greater object of notice without it-the novelty, however, soon wore off, and in a few days he mixed with unconcern with his fellow collegians:-So would a lady, who ceased to rouge, fancy, on her first entrance into a room, that every one was remarking "Clarissa has forgotten her rouge today," when, indeed, she would be less liable to remark, by being less unlike other women; nine days would terminate the wonder to herself, || and every one else, and she would no longer think herself singular, because she had not La Rouge à la mode de Paris.

As to the other consequences to result from the abandonment of this fashion, they are in fact none-for what man would not prefer d cent ugliness to fantastic beauty? who would not be more pleased, were the object ever so plain, with the ruddy flush of health, than with the hectic hue of an artificial colour, with the frequent suffusions of virtuous modesty, than with the brazen rouge of dissipated fashion?

Youth too has innumerable charms and beau.

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