Dutch fashions naturally prevailed in the Court of William and Mary, and
this queen is represented with a high muslin cap, adorned with a series
of upright frills, edged with lace, and long lappets falling on the
shoulders. Farquhar, in his comedy "Love and the Bottle," alludes to the
"high top-knots," and Swift, to the "pinners edged with colberteen," as
the lace streamers were called. About this period the hair was once
again rolled back from the face, and assumed enormous dimensions, so
much so, that in some cases it was found necessary to make doorways
broader and higher than they had hitherto been, to allow
fashionably-dressed ladies to pass through without displacing the
elaborate erections they carried. Stuffed with horsehair, clotted with
pomade and powder, and decked with every conceivable ornament, from a
miniature man-of-war in full sail, to a cooing dove with outspread
wings, presumably sitting on its nest, or a basket of flowers wreathed
with ribbons. Naturally, the aid of the barber was called in, as ladies
were incapable of constructing and manipulating such a mass of tangled
locks. We may imagine, on the score of expense and for other reasons,
the hair was not dressed so frequently as cleanliness demanded, for in a
book on costume a hairdresser is described as asking one of his
customers how long it was since her hair had been opened and repaired.
On her replying, "Nine weeks," he mildly suggested that that was as long
as a head could well go in summer, "and, therefore, it was proper to
deliver it now, as it began to be a little _hazarde_." Various anecdotes
of this nature make us feel that personal hygiene was a matter of
secondary importance to our ancestors.
Planché, in his work on British Costume, informs us that powder
maintained its ground till 1793, when it was discarded by Her Majesty
Queen Charlotte, Consort of George III., and the Princesses.
[Illustration: FASHIONABLE COIFFURE OF AN ELDERLY LADY IN THE 18TH
CENTURY.]
[Illustration: FASHIONABLE HEAD-DRESSES IN THE TIMES OF THE GEORGES.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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