Many people know that Samuel Pepys kept a diary during the 1660s, but Marlo Avidon, who is studying for a PhD in History at Christ’s, has examined his private collection of French fashion prints.
Avidon, who consulted the prints in the Pepys Library at Magdalene College, Cambridge, said:
“I was so excited. Pepys would have taken these prints out and talked to friends about them. Now I get to do that.”
Her research, published in the journal The Seventeenth Century, focusses on the role of fashion in the construction of the identity of elite women in the 17th century, but she reveals that Pepys too was very conscious of clothes and what they said about social status.
Pepys wrote in his diary in 1669 that he was ‘afeared to be seen’ in a new summer suit ‘because it was too fine with the gold lace at the hands’. When he did wear the suit, a colleague told him that the sleeves were above his station. Pepys asked his tailor to cut them off ‘as it is fit I should.’
But his interest in fashion continued and his collection grew to include two volumes studied by Avidon - Habits de France and 'Modes de Paris' - which comprise over 100 fashion illustrations printed between 1670 and 1696. One of these prints ‘Habit Noir’ (evening wear), pictured above, depicts a French courtier in showy clothing proudly displaying similar lace cuffs.
French clothes were often viewed in England as excessive, luxurious and over the top. Avidon argues, though, that Pepys who was married to a French woman called Elizabeth was very interested in French culture, while at the same time being acutely aware of contemporary anxiety about vanity and Catholic French influence.
She said:
“He [Pepys] started to use fashion to solidify his social position and demonstrate his cosmopolitan tastes, but collecting fashion prints was also a way to cement intellectual relationships and maintain his scholarly reputation.”
Pepys, whose last diary entry was made on 31 May 1669, rose to be Chief Secretary to the Admiralty in 1673 and was first elected as an MP in 1679. Avidon said:
“Pepys stopped writing his diary just as his career was taking off. It’s really challenging to access Pepys' later life. These prints provide a unique opportunity to consider his attitudes to fashion in this period.”
Avidon, M., ‘“Instructive Types” or Mere “Fancies”: Assessing French Fashion Prints in the Library of Samuel Pepys’, The Seventeenth Century (2024). DOI: 10.1080/0268117X.2024.2373990