18cNewEnglandLife
Clothing & Accoutrements
The neckerchief is a square of fabric worn around the neck. For warmth you might choose a woolen fabric, but silk, linen or cotton make a difference on a cold day. It can be worn over or under your jacket or gown with the ends tucked in or left out. An average size would be of about 40 inches. Fabrics include solids, stripes and checks. These are all generalities for the Battle Road reenactor. A search through paintings will give you ideas for everyday wear and a look at finer neckwear of lace and shear, ruffled examples.
Garters hold up the stockings. They may be fastened either above or below the knee. A recent survey of reenactors on the 18cWoman list revealed that most (but not all) art they know of shows stockings gartered above the knee, but these reenactors all garter their stockings below the knee, otherwise their stockings fall down. The current speculation is that modern stockings tend to fall more because they are knit as tubes, while 18th century stockings were knit to shape; also 18th century stockings were knit with a tighter gauge which would make them stiffer. On the other hand 18th century stockings were often baggy about the ankles, so clearly there is more to be learned about gartering.
La toilette (II) by Jean-Honoré Fragonard, 1742, [Eur, Ear] shows a woman gartering her stockings above the knee with pink ribbon. She has wrapped the ribbon around her knee at least twice. This would help to distribute the tension and allow her to tie the garters a little tighter than if she only wrapped them once around. You can find La toilette (II) on the Web under La Couturière Parisienne: The Rococo Menu: 18th Century Late Baroque and Rococo Fashion, 1740-1760.
