"The New Monthly Belle Assemblee" (September 1843)

These were advertised on eBay as "French fashion plates", but were in fact from an English magazine.

Though fashions changed slowly in the 1840s and the modern fashion industry barely existed, Paris was already established as the fashion capital of the western world.    English fashion magazines would often try to appropriate the cachet of French fashion by larding their reportage with French phrases and technical terms.   The descriptions accompanying the plates below are fairly good examples of this kind of writing:

PUBLIC PROMENADE DRESS—Robe of soie cameleon, the corsage made quite high, and tight to the shape; is trimmed around the top with lace standing up, and decorated in the heart style, with a pelerine, trimmed with ribbon plaited à la vielle.   Long tight sleeves, finished with a lace ruffle, and a plaiting of ribbon at the top.  The skirt is decorated with a biais which reaches nearly to the knee, and is headed by a plaiting of ribbon.  Pink crape bonnet, a small round open brim, the interior trimmed with roses; the exterior with a torsade and coques of ribbon, and a bouquet of white plumes aerienne.

*Corsage—bodice.

*Pelerine—a women’s cloak with a short back and long ends at the front.  For the rest, this description boils down to a silk dress with high neck and long sleeves, decorated with lace and ribbons.

OPEN CARRIAGE DRESS—Changeable silk robe, the corsage is high at the back, but descending en V at the bosom; it is trimmed with lace.  Tight sleeves, with lace ruffles falling over the hand.  Straw-coloured poult de soie chapeau, an oval brim, the edge trimmed with ribbon à la Vielle, and the interior with coques of ribbon, and brides tied in full bows and ends; the exterior is decorated with a white willow plume, a torsade of ribbon and a knot behind.  Mantelet-écharpe of India muslin, trimmed with point d’Angleterre.

CARRIAGE DRESS—Pekin robe, shaded in pink and blue, with satin spots thrown up; the corsage high at the back, and tight to the shape, opens in richly embroidered habit-shirt, with a rounded collar of two falls.  Long, tight sleeve, trimmed with a half Venetian sleeve, put very low down, and descending over the elbow.

*Pekin--a silk fabric in which broad stripes of equal width and in various colors or weaves are alternated.

PUBLIC PROMENADE DRESS—Blue barege robe; the corsage tight to the shape, high behind, but forming a little the V on the bosom, and trimmed with an embroidered muslin berthe. Sleeve a three-quarter length, easy but not wide; with muslin puffs let in at the elbow; under-sleeve of muslin bouillonnée. The skirt is decorated with three rows of fancy trimming; of a novel kind and a deeper shade.

*Barege—also barège. A sheer fabric of wool combined with silk, cotton, etc.
*Berthe—in English, Bertha.  A collar or covering worn over a low-necked dress.

Modern readers who want to learn more about the clothes depicted in these plates will find themselves having to read these descriptions with a fashion dictionary or two open beside them!  (The two main ones I consulted were The Fashion Dictionary: fabric, sewing and apparel as expressed in the language of fashion by Mary Brooks Picken, and The Thames and Hudson dictionary of fashion and fashion designers by Georgina O’Hara Callan.)