The Rococo

Era card: the Rococo (18th century)

• Robe à la française: a gown fitted at the front and full at the back, with two wide box pleats falling from the shoulders to the floor, and a skirt open at the front over a petticoat. It developed from the loose sack of the 1720s–30s and became the formal gown from around the 1740s. In the 19th century it was nicknamed the "Watteau gown", after the painter.
• Panniers: hoops worn under the skirt at the hips. They appeared around 1720 as dome-shaped hoops, then spread out sideways in the 1740s and 1750s, making the waist look smaller by contrast.
• After panniers: in the 1770s and 1780s the robe à l'anglaise, with a round skirt and no panniers, became fashionable in France, as did the robe à la polonaise, whose skirt was drawn up from inside with cords and rings to form puffs.
• Rose Bertin: marchande de modes (milliner and fashion merchant) to Marie Antoinette from 1774 until 1792. Her critics nicknamed her the "Minister of Fashion", and with the hairdresser Léonard she created the towering "pouf" hairstyles that told the news of the day.
• The chemise gown: in 1783 Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun painted the queen in a simple white muslin gown and a straw hat. Critics attacked the informal dress and the portrait was withdrawn from the Salon. This light gown paved the way for the fashions at the end of the century.
• Men: a three-piece suit of long coat, waistcoat and knee breeches; the waistcoat was often lavishly embroidered.