Advent Calendar December 5th

New Clothes for Christmas

After the simple lines of the the Regency empire dress, big sleeves became the height of fashion. Above are the 1829 cartoons by William Heath that ridiculed the look and below is what it actually looked like in real life (for the fabulously wealthy, of course). I haven’t been able to identify the artist or the lady but the painting is attributed to the 1830s British school of art.

Hair became pretty complicated too.

Think of the hours these styles took to create…