Incroyables
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
[edit] Les Incoyables & les Meveilleuses
(The Incredibles and the Marvelous)
After the French revolution ended, under the Directory there was a furor for entertainment. After the Reign of Terror was over, the agenda of the era was devoted to pleasure and enjoyment. The women of style took their cues from the classical cultures: dresses like Diane or in floral style, transparent tunics which flashed wide open on the side and which revealed a generous cleavage, the gauze or linen leaving nothing to the imagination.
The incoyables and meveilleuses were notable for their refusal to use the letter R (thus their desigantions without R) to show their mourning and defiance in the face of the execution of the king, in french le roi (beginning with R)
[edit] Details
The exhibition of products of National industry -- organized in 1798 -- is a testament to this infatuation with luxury. The greatest extravagance of the Merveilleuses was the wig, called the Perruque - French for Periwig, with a use for every hour of the day: usually blondes, but also such colors as black, blue, or green.
Gentleman companions of these ladies were called the Incroyables, or rather the 'Incoyables' since it was considered elegant to erase the 'r' in common speech, and even all the consonants, becoming nearly unintelligible. They wore eccentric outfits: green jackets with pinch size bucket, wide trousers, huge ties in which the chin disappeared, thick glasses, and hats topped by "dog ears", their hair falling on the ears. Their fragrances (based on musk) gave them the nickname Muscadin.
Sporting bicorne hats on their heads, the incroyables each possess a bludgeon they called their "executive power" and through which they could take the lead. This gilded youth, which spent freely, could be found in Paris in all fashionable places: theaters, gambling halls, glaciers, at the Jardin de Tivoli, Paris, on the Champs-Elysees, or in a gallery of the Royal Palace.
During this time dance was in the spotlight, and public balls abounded. The elegant and stylish boasted of attending the parties of the most famous of Merveilleuses: Miss Lange, Madame Tallien, Madame Recamier, or citizens Hamelin and Beauharnais, two very popular Creoles.
Their patron, Paul François Jean Nicolas, vicomte de Barras, was a leading figure whom it was a good idea to have on one's side: he hosted luxurious feasts, essential for success in such an extravagant society, and attended by Royalists, repented Jacobins, and ladies and courtesans alike. The morals were free: upon divorce, remarry, and then redivorce soon thereafter. This class of nouveaux riches, created from the sale of arms and the profits from usury, would find an update and not a small amount of sobriety and renewed modesty with the advent of the First Consul and the end of the Directory.
http://www.blastmilk.com/decollete/revolutionary-fashion/incroyables-et-merveilleus.php
