Cupcake Couture: Comical British Court Dresses During the Regency Era

Imagine this: it is 1800, you are a female member of British high society, and you are getting dressed to attend the royal court.

Everyone has abandoned the now archaic extensive ornamentation, layering, petticoats, and corsets that were in fashion about 20-30 years ago, and the natural, simple aesthetic is now in vogue. Women wear minimal under-layers and corsetry under slim silhouetted dresses, mimicking the ancient Greek peplos, pictured below.

You are to appear at Court. And the Court Dress has strict rules you must follow. Of course, at this time, high society normally dictated the fashion trends of the time, and they trickled down to the lower classes. So, naturally, the Court Dress would also be most fashionably simple, slim, and natural. Right?

Wrong!

Queen Charlotte, who determines the strict Court Dress rules, just can’t seem to let go of the hoop skirts and ostrich feathers of the past. Oh, but thankfully, she left room for the recently fashionable high Empire waistline, just under the bust.

The combination of old and new trends is good sometimes. But an Empire waistline with a hoop skirt and ostrich feathers…? Maybe it’s time to let go.

But you have no choice. The rules are the rules, and if the Queen says you have to dress up as a cupcake to see her, you dress up as a cupcake to see her. You put the cupcake on.

You are at the royal court. You are wearing the cupcake. You did royal court things. You are dismissed by the Queen. One problem. You are not allowed to turn your back on the Queen. You have to walk backwards to leave. Your dress has a long train on the back that drags on the floor, because the Queen wants to see cupcake people with tails as well.

So, wearing a hoop skirt with a long train, you must carefully walk backwards to leave the royal court. Without falling on your face like a smashed cupcake.

Okay, I’m done with the cupcake talk.

By 1807, the French had abandoned the mandatory Court Dress hoop skirts. The British wouldn’t abandon them until 1820, which was ironically when skirts were once again starting to widen again, and kept expanding, until they got so big in the 1850s, the crinoline was invented to support the gargantuan skirt silhouettes.

I don’t know if that means Queen Charlotte was behind the times or ahead of her time. Maybe both?

In all seriousness, as ridiculous as British Regency era Court Dresses look, I don’t hate them as much as I think I should. There’s a sort of silly novelty to them. They’re so bad they’re good. But this is just in hindsight, because I think I would pass on the cupcakes if I was alive at the time. Sorry, Queen Charlotte!