Plate of Fashions for February 1814
I'm not sure if this dress is a dinner dress or a carriage dress. I've got conflicting notes on it and don't have access to the original text to verify what my photocopy is supposed to depict. It certainly looks more like a pelisse-style carriage dress than a dinner gown, but then again fashions were eccentric--hats we would not wear indoors were normal head garb for formal meals and balls.
Mother in Morning Dress with Infant, 1814
Morning Dress. Since depicting nursing would be too shocking, the infant nurses not on a nipple, but on the edge of a bodice, which suggests the breast more indirectly. This sort of pink bodice was sometimes called "braces," and acted to draw attention to the breasts as well as give them extra support. This morning dress has two rouleaux of white trimming the bottom of the white muslin skirt. The collar is the popular Tudor or Elizabethan ruff.
For comparative purposes see Gillray's satiric print "The Fashionable Mother" below. Note how much more explicit this print is.
