Journal des Dames et des Modes, Costume Parisien, 1805, An 13 (652) Négligé pour la Promenade. 1805

This fashion plate by Horace Vernet was published in Paris in 1805, and printed using etching and stipple. The image depicts a woman in a neoclassical, high-waisted dress of the period. The print gives us a sense of the diaphanous, lightweight cotton that was fashionable at the time. The thinness of the fabric and the cut of the dress was meant to evoke the classical world. But let's consider cotton's more complex reality. It was the engine of colonial trade, and the dresses worn by fashionable Parisian women would likely have been made of cotton grown by enslaved people. The textile industry relied on the exploitation of labor to flourish, and this image is a reminder of the links between fashion, capitalism, and social inequality. By thinking about the material of this dress, we gain a richer understanding of the historical context in which it was made and consumed.