ALL you Can Carry
“There’s a sense of people [in those days] not having to carry much,” Jones says. “Wealthy women had servants to buy things. A handkerchief was all they needed.”
In contrast to 21st-century clubbers whose bags bulge with mobiles, make-up and life’s modern necessities, revellers at 19th-century balls went out with few requirements. “If you went to a ball you had a little booklet and pencil,” Jones says, “and you’d write down your dance partners for the evening.”
A “reticule”, or small drawstring bag, was carried by hand or wrist and rose to prominence when straight cut-tight-under-the-bust empire line dresses became fashionable and bags could no longer be hidden beneath outer clothing. Previously bags - or “pockets”, as they were called - were tied around a woman’s waist and concealed under voluminous crinoline skirts. A small slit in the garment allowed the wearer to reach her pocket. Resembling the inside of modern-day pockets, such bags, Jones says, were often exquisitely embroidered by their owners. Likening the unseen labour to corsetry, Jones says: “There’s that secret pleasure of wearing beautiful things that aren’t seen.”
