│By Megan Harlow, Gale Ambassador at Durham University│
It is a truth universally acknowledged that Regency fashion has become a cultural touchstone, romanticised amid the contemporary resurgence of early nineteenth-century period dramas. The global reception of Bridgerton (2020–), alongside the proliferation of the ‘Regencycore’ aesthetic, exemplifies the symbiotic relationship between historical narrative engagement and a renewed preoccupation with sartorial historiography, positioning fashion as a dynamic site of aesthetic and ideological negotiation.
Yet, as screen portrayals negotiate between historical fidelity and modern sensibilities, they often obscure the constructed nature of costume, selectively resurrecting aspects of the past while neglecting the intricate social, political, and economic meanings embedded in dress.
Drawing on Gale Primary Sources, this analysis interrogates how Regency fashion was originally represented and how its legacy is reshaped in adaptation. Ultimately, questioning what histories are made visible through costume, and what is strategically forgotten, highlighting the historiographical implications of fashion in contemporary media.
Fashioning the Regency
Although the term ‘period drama’ appears self-evident, its exact definition remains deceptively fluid. Equally elusive is the precise delineation of the Regency period itself. Conventionally bracketed between 1811 and 1820 – the years during which George IV acted as Prince Regent – the timeframe is, in practice, more flexible, often extended to encompass the later decades of the Georgian era, roughly from the 1790s through the late 1830s, culminating in the ascension of Queen Victoria.
A period markedly distinct from the preceding Georgian opulence and the succeeding Victorian moral strictures, it is often remembered as an era of refinement and culture. Yet, fashion is perhaps the most enduring visual legacy of the era, distinguished by its neoclassical inspirations and departure from the heavily structured forms of the eighteenth century. Emulating ideals of natural beauty and the classical form, women’s dress emphasised empire waistlines, lightweight fabrics, and a streamlined vertical silhouette.
Yet, this aesthetic was neither monolithic nor apolitical. These evolving aesthetic modalities not only mirrored prevailing cultural ideals but also constituted a semiotic field for individual expression. Garments were imbued with meaning, delineating class, gender, and propriety through fabric, cut, and ornamentation. An entry in La Belle Assemblée from August 1810 describes a walking dress of ‘white French cambric, or pale pink muslin with long sleeves […] trimmed with Mechlen edging’.
Historical Fidelity in Pride and Prejudice (1995)
Though often overshadowed by the iconic image of Darcy’s plunge into the lake, Dinah Collin’s costume design for Pride and Prejudice remains widely acclaimed as one of the most historically informed visual representations of the period. Rooted in rigorous primary-source research, Collin’s practice exemplifies a methodology that sought to reconcile historical authenticity with the narrative demands of screen storytelling.
Her approach was not merely reconstructive but interpretive, aiming to transform archival references into garments that functioned as lived-in clothing for actors. Distinctions in costume, from the sartorial opulence of the Bingley sisters to the more restrained muslins worn by the Bennet family, reflect not merely aesthetic variation but encoded markers of class, geography, and social aspiration.
Controversy surrounding undergarments in the production further highlights tensions between historical fidelity and modern aesthetics required in the making of period drama. A 1996 Times article reports the lingerie brand Berlei having claimed their products enhanced the actresses’ figures, a statement refuted by viewers and the BBC costume department, who affirmed reliance on historically authentic soft corsets and empire-line ties under muslin gowns. As noted, ‘a modern bra would have completely ruined the line’.
Netflix’s Bridgerton and Aestheticised Anachronism
In contrast, Netflix’s Bridgerton deliberately eschews historical accuracy in favour of an anachronistic, hyper-stylised Regency fantasia.
Though costume designers Ellen Mirojnick and John Glaser have acknowledged that historical accuracy was secondary to aesthetic pleasure and symbolic narrative function, never purporting to offer an accurate depiction of the ton, the show’s visual detachment from Regency dress codes risks effacing the period’s original moral and gender norms, anchoring its visual lexicon in recognisable empire silhouettes while superimposing ahistorical motifs – neon palettes, tight corsetry, and contemporary hair styling – that disrupt period authenticity.
While the series gestures toward progressive interventions, such as foregrounding Queen Charlotte’s speculated biracial heritage and acknowledging the persistence of pre-1790 silhouettes among elder women, the revealing necklines and lavish embellishments obliterate the era’s stringent norms of feminine modesty and corporeal regulation.
Furthermore, costumes like the Featherington’s gaudy citrus-hued, ostentatiously adorned-ensembles function as a visual shorthand for nouveau-riche affectation, distorting the nuanced material culture of the period. Here, historical costume is consumed less as a culturally embedded text than as an aesthetic commodity, wherein the spectacle of modern fantasy eclipses the ideological underpinnings of the Regency neoclassical ideal.
Emma (2020) and Embodied Material Culture
Having juxtaposed one period drama for its historical rigor with another characterised by anachronism, it is only fitting to present Emma as a nuanced intermediary. Alexandra Byrne’s costuming manifests a measured yet expressive deployment of period dress, wherein costume operates not merely as decorative spectacle but as a semiotic vehicle integral to storytelling.
Indeed, Emma maintains a commitment to sartorial verisimilitude that both informs and is informed by the narrative arc. The Daily Telegraph lauded Emma as ‘by far the best dressed’ among Austen adaptations, emphasising the film’s capacity to narrate through costuming itself. The gradual evolution of the characters’ attire conveys socioeconomic nuance, including the plausible off-screen use of hand-me-downs among female characters and the tailored refinement of male garments, thereby encoding distinctions of class and age with considerable historical fidelity.
Byrne’s visual storytelling is undergirded by authenticity, drawing upon existing garments for direct inspiration. Notably, the film features a close reproduction of the circa 1810 red silk net gown from the Victoria and Albert Museum, widely regarded by Regency fashion historians as one of the most exquisite surviving garments of the period. Such details, subtle yet telling, enable the film’s costume design to communicate economic stratification and lived experience without explicit narrative exposition.
Primary Sources and the Importance of Archival Evidence
In confronting the representation of historical dress in contemporary visual media, one engages with the broader, often interminable, historiographic task: the construction of historical narratives, the interpretation of archival evidence, and the mediation of history itself through cultural production. Period dramas, far from being neutral aesthetic exercises, become sites where competing notions of authenticity, fantasy, and ideology converge, shaping public understanding of the past through their sartorial choices.
A critical dialogue between primary archival materials and screen representations reveals the extent to which historical nuance is often effaced in favour of narrative expediency or visual excess. Yet what is omitted or exaggerated in costume dramas is as revealing as what is retained. Thus, to apprehend historical dress as a cultural text is to acknowledge it as a site of historiographical intervention: its visual reproduction in media is always already political. Costume operates not only as an index of period specificity but also as a medium through which the present reimagines, and often reinscribes, the past.
To engage responsibly with Regency fashion onscreen, then, is to look beyond the surface of silk and muslin and into the material and textual archives that contextualise them. It is only in this dynamic interplay between mediated fantasy and archival fact that the ‘fabric’ of history is continually woven and rewoven.
If you’re interested in exploring how fashion, identity, and primary sources intersect in historical study, you may also enjoy:
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Cover Image: George Cruikshank, Highest Life in London, 1821, Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:George_Cruikshank_-Highest_Life_in_London–B1984.21.223-_Yale_Center_for_British_Art.jpg
