Waistcoat
Blue woven silk damask
1730s
Men's waistcoats changed in style across the Georgian period, starting off long with no collar, and becoming shorter and shorter until they finished just above the level of the waist, frequently with turn over collars. This mid-length example is from the 1730s, the same decade that Bath entrepreneur and philanthropist Ralph Allen (1693-1794) donated funds and stone from his quarries on Combe Down to found the Mineral Water Hospital in the centre of the city.
[Fashion Museum]
Part of the Fashion Museum exhibition: Georgians – Dress for Polite Society.
includes over 30 original 18th century outfits and ensembles drawn from the Fashion Museum collection, including gowns made of colourful and richly patterned woven silks and embroidered coats and waistcoats worn by Georgian gentlemen of fashion...The exhibition includes three grand mantuas - with wide skirts originally held out by cane supports known as panniers, from the French word for baskets - worn at the Georgian courts in the 1750s and 1760s...The exhibition also includes work by leading fashion designers Anna Sui, Meadham Kirchhoff, Vivienne Westwood, Stephen Jones, and Alexander McQueen showing how the elegance and grace of Georgian dress continues to inspire fashion designers today.
[Fashion Museum]
In the Fashion Museum
The Bath Assembly Rooms, built 1769-71, designed by John Wood, the Younger (1728-82).
Opened by subscription on 30 September 1771 to serve the fast-expanding upper town, this 'large and noble block' (Pevsner) became the heart of polite Bath society: see the description in Dickens's 'The Pickwick Papers' (1836). One of the most magnificent of all Georgian civic buildings, it entered use as a lecture and concert hall (in which Liszt performed) in the 19th century before becoming a cinema and market in the 20th. The Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings (SPAB), through the munificence of Ernest Cook, bought the building in 1931. It was lavishly restored under the eye of Mowbray Green, the Bath architect, and re-opened in October 1938. Severe bomb damage in April 1942 affected the interior, and the ballroom in particular, leaving the building a gutted shell: this was Bath's most severe architectural casualty of the war. A second full restoration was undertaken in the early 1960s under the direction of Sir Albert Richardson, assisted by E.A.S. Houfe; Oliver Messel advised on the decorative schemes. The Assembly Rooms were re-opened in May 1963. The complex now includes the Museum of Costume, housed in the basement (work undertaken in 1978-79).
A notable Palladian public entertainment building, showing the adaptation of the Woods' domestic architectural vocabulary for public use on a scale of Roman magnificence. It is also a triumph of restoration.
[British Listed Buildings]
Waistcoat
Blue woven silk damask
1730s
Men's waistcoats changed in style across the Georgian period, starting off long with no collar, and becoming shorter and shorter until they finished just above the level of the waist, frequently with turn over collars. This mid-length example is from the 1730s, the same decade that Bath entrepreneur and philanthropist Ralph Allen (1693-1794) donated funds and stone from his quarries on Combe Down to found the Mineral Water Hospital in the centre of the city.
[Fashion Museum]
Part of the Fashion Museum exhibition: Georgians – Dress for Polite Society.
includes over 30 original 18th century outfits and ensembles drawn from the Fashion Museum collection, including gowns made of colourful and richly patterned woven silks and embroidered coats and waistcoats worn by Georgian gentlemen of fashion...The exhibition includes three grand mantuas - with wide skirts originally held out by cane supports known as panniers, from the French word for baskets - worn at the Georgian courts in the 1750s and 1760s...The exhibition also includes work by leading fashion designers Anna Sui, Meadham Kirchhoff, Vivienne Westwood, Stephen Jones, and Alexander McQueen showing how the elegance and grace of Georgian dress continues to inspire fashion designers today.
[Fashion Museum]
In the Fashion Museum
The Bath Assembly Rooms, built 1769-71, designed by John Wood, the Younger (1728-82).
Opened by subscription on 30 September 1771 to serve the fast-expanding upper town, this 'large and noble block' (Pevsner) became the heart of polite Bath society: see the description in Dickens's 'The Pickwick Papers' (1836). One of the most magnificent of all Georgian civic buildings, it entered use as a lecture and concert hall (in which Liszt performed) in the 19th century before becoming a cinema and market in the 20th. The Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings (SPAB), through the munificence of Ernest Cook, bought the building in 1931. It was lavishly restored under the eye of Mowbray Green, the Bath architect, and re-opened in October 1938. Severe bomb damage in April 1942 affected the interior, and the ballroom in particular, leaving the building a gutted shell: this was Bath's most severe architectural casualty of the war. A second full restoration was undertaken in the early 1960s under the direction of Sir Albert Richardson, assisted by E.A.S. Houfe; Oliver Messel advised on the decorative schemes. The Assembly Rooms were re-opened in May 1963. The complex now includes the Museum of Costume, housed in the basement (work undertaken in 1978-79).
A notable Palladian public entertainment building, showing the adaptation of the Woods' domestic architectural vocabulary for public use on a scale of Roman magnificence. It is also a triumph of restoration.
[British Listed Buildings]