Enfilade

Revolutionary Fashion 1790-1820
Fairfax House, York, 26 August — 31 December 2011

Our major new exhibition for the autumn and winter season 2011 at Fairfax House is Revolutionary Fashion 1790-1820. Following on from our acclaimed Dress to Impress exhibition of 2010, which focused on changing fashions during the period 1730-1780, this second exploration of Georgian Fashion takes the story from the revolutionary 1790s to the rakish Regency period. The exhibition opens on Friday 26 August 2011.

Uncovering the revolutionary changes in fashion in the last decade of the eighteenth century and exploring the influence of the French Revolution, Industrial Revolution and Napoleonic Wars, Revolutionary Fashion brings together a unique and lavish selection of the highly elegant clothing of Georgian and Regency polite society. Featuring period gowns, shoes and accessories from collections in Yorkshire and beyond, the exhibition will reveal the styles and showcase the ‘real’ clothes worn by Jane Austen’s heroes and heroines, and place the dazzling kaleidoscope of late Georgian fashions in its social, cultural and historical context.

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If possible, you might consider visiting the exhibition on September 17:

Georgian Cakes and Baking
Fairfax House, York, 17 September 2011

Join Peter Brears, renowned food historian, in the Fairfax kitchen as he reveals the sophistication of Georgian York’s baking tradition and demonstrates the cakes, biscuits and baked goods that could be enjoyed in the eighteenth-century City. This demonstration day includes a display of Yorkshire Country House baking, and food tastings will be available for all visitors.

A 2007 profile of Brears from the Yorkshire Post is available here, and there’s a fine review of Brears’ 2010 book, Jellies and Their Moulds, at AustenOnly.