Wilton, Mary Margaret Stanley Egerton: The Book of costume or, Annals of fashion: from the earliest period to the present time (London: Henry Colburn, Publisher, 1847)

THE TOILETTE IN ENGLAND

127

breeches, described by Holmes, who gives the fol-
lowing account of a gentle-
man’s dress in 1659. “ A
short-waisted doublet, and
petticoat breeches — the
lining being lower than the
breeches—is tied above the
knees ; the breeches are
ornamented with ribands up
to the pocket, and half their
breadth upon the thigh ;
the waistband is set about
with ribands, and the shirt
hano'ino1 out over them.”
o o
With the usual caprice of
fashion, the doublet, which
latterly was so short that it
scarcely came to the waist,
now lengthened out wonderfully, and seemed inclined
to conceal the nether garments entirely ; the sleeves,
also, reached nearly to the elbows, and from under their
manifold bows and puffs of riband, the shirt-sleeves, of
white linen, swelled out in two or three large balloons,
till at the hands they were terminated with ruffles.
Buttons appear to have been a fashionable orna-
ment of the dress at this time.
In the “ Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe,” we read the
following account of the costume of her husband, at
an audience which he had with Philip IV., when
ambassador of Charles II. at the court of Spain.
“ Then came my husband,” says the authoress, “in
a very rich suit of clothes, of a dark phillamot brocade,
laced with silver and gold lace, nine laces, every one
as broad as my hand, and a little silver and gold lace