Head To Toe: Accessorising the Georgians

‘Head to Toe: Accessorising the Georgians’ celebrates the visual splendour of Georgian Britain and reveals the beautiful, wide-ranging accessories that accompanied, ornamented, adorned and even sometimes underpinned the attire of fashionable eighteenth-century and Regency society. Encompassing accessories for both men and women, the exhibition reveals the potent consumer and fashion-conscious society that was at work seeking accessories that were not only functional but fashionable.

This exhibition showcases the accessories that were worn, quite literally, from top to bottom; from headwear such as bonnets, hats, caps and parasols right through to stockings, garters and extravagant shoes of all shapes, patterns and designs. 

The more discreet accessories that were normally hidden from sight are also revealed with the layers of underwear that combined to create the fashionable form; for women this meant corsets, hoops, tie-on pockets and chemises. Most conspicuous by their absence were of course the ‘drawers’, ‘pantaloons’ or even ‘knickers’ that only became an essential piece of underclothing into the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Male accessories also form a key part of the exhibition revealing that vanity and the pursuit of fashion was not for the female realm alone. A pair of stockings for men with specially padded calves are amongst the more unusual forms of Georgian fashion accessory on display, clearly defining the fashionable taste for a well-shaped, muscular ‘manly’ leg in Georgian Britain!

Other key pieces include a rare set of eighteenth-century patches worn to conceal smallpox marks on the face, and even eyebrows made from mouse hair! Through these objects ‘Head to Toe’ explores the somewhat strange world of cosmetics and their burgeoning use as the ultimate form of ‘accessorisation’ for the face in the eighteenth century.

‘Head to Toe’ is the third in a series of fashion exhibitions at Fairfax House using costume, clothing and fashion to unlock the doors to understanding Georgian society. This exhibition is also part of celebrations marking the 300^th anniversary of the Georgian age and the accession of George I to the throne of Britain in 1714.