The library contains one of the largest bound collections of 17th-century French fashion prints in the world. Avidon, a PhD researcher at Christ’s College, Cambridge, focuses on two of its volumes, the Habits de France and Modes de Paris, which comprise over a hundred fashion illustrations printed between 1670 and 1696.
Appearing in the journal The Seventeenth Century, Avidon’s article publishes eight images from the collection for the first time. Avidon links one of these images to a cringe-worthy episode in Pepys’ diary.
In 1669, Pepys wrote that he was ‘afeared to be seen’ in a summer suit he had just bought ‘because it was too fine with the gold lace at the hands’. Finally he plucked up the courage but a socially superior colleague spotted him in the park and told him the sleeves were above his station. Pepys decided ‘never to appear in Court’ with the sleeves and made a tailor cut them off, ‘as it is fit I should.’
Pepys learnt a lesson that day but this didn’t put him off fashion. He went on to buy a print entitled ‘Habit Noir’ (evening wear) which shows an elite Frenchman proudly showing off very similar lace cuffs as well as plentiful ribbons.
“Pepys would have seen this outfit as pretty risky,” Marlo Avidon said. “This was for a French courtier, and was probably well beyond his budget. But Pepys probably did own suits with these kinds of ribbon loops, just not so many as this. This is how fashion worked and still works today – you demonstrate your knowledge of style within your means.”
“Pepys felt he had to walk a really fine line, especially early in his career. His father was a tailor, his mother a washerwoman, and throughout his life Pepys was profoundly worried about how he was perceived and took steps to manage his image. The diary shows his anxieties as a young adult. The prints show that his determination to prove himself, using clothes and cultural capital, continued throughout his life.”
Pepys rose to be the Chief Secretary to the Admiralty in 1673 and was first elected as an MP in 1679.
“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.”
Marlo Avidon
Pepys’ initial print purchases and close observation of his superiors in the civil service, detailed in his diary, show him attempting to access lofty social circles, Avidon argues. But as Pepys expanded his print collection, he was part of a network of gentleman scholars linked to the Naval Office and Royal Society.
“He started to use fashion to solidify his social position and demonstrate his cosmopolitan tastes,” Avidon said, “but collecting fashion prints was also a way to cement intellectual relationships and maintain his scholarly reputation.”
“I went into this research with a lot of reservations about Pepys, I didn't like him. But the prints offer a much more nuanced picture of him, a more human picture. He was fallible and anxious and his actions in response to that anxiety feel quite familiar today.”
