Pride, prejudice and what Jane wore

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Jeffrey Nigro

‘Estimating Lace and Muslin: Dress and Fashion in
Jane Austen’s Work and World’

Lecture by Jeff Nigro, art historian; program is co-sponsored by the Art Associates of Oak Park and River Forest

Oak Park Public Library, Main Library, 834 Lake St.

2 p.m. Jan. 22

Free

(708) 383-8200. www.oppl.org

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Jane Austen fans, historians and fashionistas will all find common ground when Jeff Nigro, Art Institute of Chicago lecturer and educator, presents “Estimating Lace and Muslin: Dress and Fashion in Jane Austen’s Work and World” at Oak Park Public Library on Jan 22.

Fashion changes fast, and the late 18th and early 19th centuries were no exception. Nigro’s talk will cover the radical developments in British and French couture, haute and otherwise, during Jane Austen’s era, also known in England as the Regency.

“With clothing there’s
anthropology, sociology, there’s politics, art, aesthetics, how things look, and
why they look a certain
way,” said Nigro. “There’s the influence of the theater, the influence of the military on fashion and you find
all of these different elements of human life in a
sort of culture and civilization all come together in what we wear.”

In addition to working with the Art Institute, Nigro serves as Regional Coordinator of the local chapter of the Jane Austen Society of North America. His passion for Austen began later in life than most of her fans, who most often discover the author in high school when reading Pride and Prejudice.

Romantic era

Nigro has enthusiastically led discussions of Jane Austen’s era, as well as talks on many other periods of art, for about 15 years, tweaking them with each new piece of information he uncovers in his research. He explains that Austen’s time was a particularly exciting time for the arts, coinciding as it does with the beginnings of the Romantic Movement.

“I’ve always been interested in the history of dress, the history of what people wear because it’s something that is very universal,” he said. “This is something we always do as human beings. There are all these cultural influences that come to bear on it. So, bringing the history of dress, Jane Austen, and her era together are a whole lot of things that I find interesting.”

Austen stands out, Nigro says, as a sophisticated writer and thinker who produced witty, complex novels. Her stories seem normal slices of life on the surface, yet display the complexity of her society and contain imperfect characters.

“Even though it’s sort of funny, it’s a world that on the surface is very different from my background,” he said. “Yet I’m immediately drawn to it. The first thing she did was make me laugh because she’s so funny and then it turned into this deeper and deeper understanding of her world. It helped to think about the historical context, but also it’s just something that I think anybody can relate to. There’s ways in which her world is not so different from ours either.”

Changing fashions

Austen lived from 1775 to 1817, and the changes clothes went through during those years, Nigro calls “unbelievable.” Fashions (for women) went from extremely elaborate, complicated clothes with layers and hoop skirts and high, powdered hair, to radically simplified styles almost Grecian in their lines.

These changes occurred for cultural, social, philosophical and political reasons, which Nigro will illuminate with a power point presentation filled with paintings, prints and fashion plates. The talk will mainly examine fashion references Austen uses in her surviving letters, and moments in her novels where fashion is mentioned. The audience will be welcome to ask questions.

He says he loves sharing knowledge on this topic and hopes to get people more interested in Austen and about fashion history.

“To me this knowledge isn’t worth anything if you’re just sitting on it and not sharing it,” he said. “If people walk away with a greater appreciation of Jane Austen or people who already love Austen want to get more of a sense of the context of the world that she lived in, that’s great. If people come away with a greater appreciation of art, or whatever people want to get out of this, I hope everybody gets something out of it.”