Dressing for the Pleasure Gardens

Tickets £10, £8 concessions and Foundling Friends. To book call 020 7841 3600 or drop into the Museum

Doors 18:00, talk 19:00

One of the great pleasures - then as now -  was ‘to see and be seen’ and fashion was hugely important when visiting the Pleasure Gardens as the walks and colonnades, beautifully laid out for promenading were also remarkably effective as a catwalk. The Pleasure Gardens  played host to numerous masquerades where costume blurred social boundaries, and inspired various fashions including the 'Vauxhall Vittoria gown' and the 'Ranelagh cap', as well as being a factor in the increasingly elaborate fashions of the 18th century.

This talk by author, Sarah Jane Downing will focus on the key styles during each of the eras of the pleasure gardens and how they would have been worn then, looking primarily at the styles during Pepys' day, Hogarth's day, Jane Austen's day, and Whistler's day. The exhibition will be open for the duration of the evening.

This talk is in conjunction with The Foundling Museum's summer exhibition, The Triumph of Pleasure: Vauxhall Gardens 1729 - 1786.