Speaking with Fashion: How Clothing Makes Meaning

Dr. Amelia Rauser, Charles A. Dana Professor of Art History, Franklin & Marshall College

Eighteenth-century women were vibrant participants in public life– intellectually, socially, politically, and aesthetically. But their modes of expression were limited; they could not serve in official roles, of course, and their voices were rarely heard or published. Yet women’s bodies moved freely through public spaces, and as a result, some women used their bodies like walking billboards, displaying their values, ideas, and associations through their dress and accessories. This lecture will consider two ways fashion can speak: literally, via specific items that reflected a partisan view, like the “Regency Caps” and “Loyalty Bandeaus” worn by women during the crisis of 1789; and metaphorically, via styles that remade the body, like the white neoclassical dresses of the 1790s. In both simple and complex ways, women deployed fashionable dress as a form of speech in the late 18th century.