Les Incroyables et Merveilleuses: Fashion as Anti-Rebellion

By Kallisti on July 27, 2007 9:05 AM | 1 Comment

Point de Convention (Absolutely no agreement)
Louis-Léopold Boilly 1797
A Merveilleuse is mistaken for a prostitute
and refuses the coin offered to her.

The Muscadins (or Incroyable, the Incredible) first appeared around 1792, known for their royalist sympathies and so named for the musk perfume they wore in defiance of revolutionary austerity. They re-emerged after the fall of Robespierre, ending the Terror, and were key thugs in what has become known as The White Terror, a backlash against jacobin oppression, violence, and Robespierrean virtue. The jeunesse dorée roamed the streets of Paris drinking, toasting the monarchy and lashing out at patriots with sticks. And they looked fabulous doing it. Typified by their adherence to ancien regime knee-breeches and exaggerated English style frock coats with impossibly large collars, and powdered hair dressed outlandishly in either multiple braids or "dog-eared" style, cut short in the back à la victime and long beside the face. They were literally roving bands of angry dandies. By the late 1790's however, sporting a Muscadin hairdo would no longer get you arrested (as it could in 1795) as the various styles were adopted and absorbed into the fashionable and ephemeral society of the Directoire.
Aileen Ribeiro says of this image (les Incroyables) :

Caricaturists found a perfect subject in the form of the masculine fashions of the late 1790s. Both young men wear tight-fitting square-cut coats with huge lapels, and knee-breeches decorated with loops of fabric. Their political sympathies are not necessarily clear. Although their culottes date from the ancien régime, their printed cravats are working-class in origin; and, while the man on the left wears his hair plaited at the back à la victime, the man on the right has a revolutionary cockade prominently pinned to his hat. Both have shaggy hair, the side locks falling like spaniel's ears. The implications seems to be that fashion is more important than ideology.— Fashion in the French Revolution, Aileen Ribeiro

Les Merveilleuses, or Marvelous Women, ruled the live fast, die young social whirlwind that took over the salons of Paris after the Terror. At their front Thérésa Cabarrus Fontenay Tallien and Joséphine de Beauharnais (later Empress) both of whom just barely survived the Jacobin regime. It was partly on Thérésa's behalf, with whom Tallien had been conducting a torrid affair, that he spearheaded the Thermadorian take down of Robespierre and the Montagnards. The à la Grecque style typified by Thérésa, Joséphine, and Madame Récamier consisted of clinging, flowing classical Greek and Roman styles in white silks and muslins, draped with brightly colored shawls and ribbons edged with classical motifs. The once allegorical fashion left the painters studio and took to the streets and ballrooms, their dainty feet shod in golden sandals, and dresses dampened to enhance their cling (though wearing knitted flesh colored stays and stockings to preserve a vestige of modesty). Madame Tallien though was the real deal, and famously appeared at the Paris Opera wearing a white silk dress without sleeves and sans petticoats (gasp!). Charles Maurice de Talleyrand commented: "Il n'est pas possible de s'exposer plus somptueusement!" ("It is not possible to exhibit oneself more sumptuously!") [source: wikipedia]. Hair was worn curled and dressed with ribbons à la grecque or clipped short à la victime or à la titus, in emulation of the last haircut the condemned received before being sent to the guillotine so as not to impede the blade. This short and sassy style lasted amazingly til the early 1800s, but never caught on in England or other countries, unlike the empire waisted dress, which proved the silhouette du jour for nearly thirty years.

1791
Revolutionary Dandy, note hercules club for patriotic debate

early 1790's les Incroyable
Note exaggerated hats and lapels,
aristocratic pastime such as gambling

1792 Victoria & Albert Collection

1793
"Ah! Quelle Antiquité" and "Oh! Quelle Folie que la Nouveauté!!!"
1778 meets 1793

1794 meets 1742

1794 le Depart et le Retour
Jean-Baptiste Isabey

1795 Muscadins knock over a bust of Marat [source]

Anon. 1795
Jeune fille brune en négligé
[source]

1794-95 (possibly) Madame Theresa Tallien by David

1795
Theresa Cabarrus (later Tallien)
Jean-Baptiste Isabey

1796 Joséphine Beauharnais as Venus
Andrea Appiani [Source]

1796 Le Petit Coblentz 
Jean-Baptiste Isabey

1795-96 A Merveilleuse as seen on the boulevard. Note the hair à la victime, in immitation of the toilette du condamne.

1796 English Caricature

1796 Merveilleuse in her exaggerated bonnet & classical motif scarf

à la Grecque

le Incroyable

1796-97 Costume à la Sauvage et à la Grecque

1796

1797
Faites la Paix
Léopold Boilly

1796 Les Incroyables
by Jean-Louis Darcy after Carles Vernet

Palais Royale during the Directory

Léopold Boilly

1797
L'Anarchiste

Late 1790s Directory Soiree

Late 1790s Palais Royale [source]

The Directory. Allegory warning women about being 'bought'.

1798 Portrait of a Young Woman
Circle of David

1798-99 Madame Raymond de Verninac, born Henriette Delacroix, elder sister of Eugène Delacroix by David

1799 Mervellieuse

1800 Jeanne Françoise Julie Adélaïde Récamier
Jacques-Louis David

1800 Parisien Ladies in their Winter Dress
English caricature by George Cruikshank

Journal des Dames et des Modes: Fashion plates and the followers of fashion 1797 - 1800. [source]

Plate No. 25, 1795-96
Note the hair à la victime, in immitation of the toilette du condamne.

Plate No. 16, 1797
from Journal des Dames et des Modes

Plate No. 13, 1797
from Journal des Dames et des Modes

Plate No. 52, 1797
from Journal des Dames et des Modes

Plate No. 39, 1797
from Journal des Dames et des Modes

Plate No. 8, 1797 Fichu en Croise

1797 Fichu en Croise detail

Plate No. 16, 1797

Plate No. 12, 1797 Cocarde en Feuilles

Plate No. 58, 1797
from Journal des Dames et des Modes

Plate No. 14, 1797 Ceinture de Velours Noir

Plate No. 9, 1797
Chignon à la Grecque, entrelacé avec un Fichu de couleur, Bandeau en Cheveux, Collier de Perles, Ceinture à la Victime

Plate No. 37, 1798
Croisures à la Victime
from Journal des Dames et des Modes

Plate No. 52, 1798
from Journal des Dames et des Modes

Plate No. 80, 1798-99
from Journal des Dames et des Modes

Plate No. 100, 1798-99
from Journal des Dames et des Modes

Plate No. 145, 1798 Cornette de Crêpe, à Longues Pointes

Plate No. 81, 1798 Demi-Capote posée de côté, Fichu, Tablier, Ridicule

Plate No. 151, 1798 Peigne d'Or, Fichu, Ceinture

Plate No. 104, 1798 Chapeau de Paille, garni d'une, Echelle de Rubans

1798 Chapeau à la Minerve, garni de Gances entrelacéea, Doillette bordée en Velours

1798 Ceinture Croisée, Robe Overte sur le Côte
from Journal des Dames et des Modes

1799
from Journal des Dames et des Modes

1799
from Journal des Dames et des Modes

1799
from Journal des Dames et des Modes

1799
from Journal des Dames et des Modes

1799
from Journal des Dames et des Modes

1799
from Journal des Dames et des Modes

1799
from Journal des Dames et des Modes

1799 Turban au Balloon, Ceinture Croisée. Redicule à Chiffre
from Journal des Dames et des Modes

1799
from Journal des Dames et des Modes

1800
from Journal des Dames et des Modes

Links & Sources:

• Fashion in the French Revolution, Aileen Ribeiro
• Incroyables et Merveilleuses: Du renouveau de la Canne
  Follow the salle suivante button at the bottom of the page for a lovely tour!
• Muscadin: at Wikipedia
• Jean-Baptiste Isabey: miniature portraits in France's museums
• Jean-Baptiste Isabey: A Bio
• Reign of Terror: (September 5, 1793 – July 28, 1794) or simply The Terror (French: la Terreur) was a period of about ten months during the French Revolution when struggles between rival factions led to mutual radicalization which took on a violent character with mass executions by guillotine.
• White Terror: Post Thermadorian Reaction to the Jacobins and their supporters
• Directory (Directoire): Held executive power in France from November 2, 1795 until November 10, 1799 (5 Brumaire year III to the 18 Brumaire year VIII): following the Convention and preceding the Consulate.