Abstract
The Enlightenment mania for uniforms, combined with the increasing importance of the “nation” as a category in political thought, led several reformers to propose a uniform costume for all citizens. The desire for national uniforms emerged in the late Enlightenment and climaxed during the French Revolution. Recall that the term “national uniforms,” as used in this book, describes neither the professional livery of soldiers or bureaucrats, nor ceremonial costumes for special occasions, nor traditional peasant costumes. The term here refers only to uniforms intended (1) for everyday wear (2) by all members of the nation.
It is necessary for the lawgiver, who has not yet dared to introduce the uniform and with it to introduce a better tone in society to set up a uniform for the preservation of national character, and necessary pleasures for the lofty enthusiasm for noble duties.
— Justus Moser (1772).1
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Notes
Justus Möser, “Die Vortheile einer allgemeinen Landesuniform, declamirt von einem Bürger,” Sämmtliche Werke /Patriotische Phantasien (Berlin, 1842–43), 71.
Möser’s collected works are available as B.R. Abecken, ed., Justus Möser, Sämmtliche Werke / Patriotische Phantasien (Berlin, 1842–43), hereafter Phantasien;
and as Ludwig Schirmeyer, ed., Justus Mösers Sämmtliche Werke (Hamburg, 1943–45), hereafter Sämmtliche Werke.
Michael Steinberg, Austria as Theater and Ideology (Ithaca, 2000 [1999]), 93.
See Franco Venturi, The End of the Old Regime in Europe (Princeton, 1989 [Turin, 1979]), 279–339; Pierre de Luz, Gustav III — Ett Porträtt (Stockholm, 1949), 103–107.
Ragnar Svanström, Carl Palmstierna, A Short History of Sweden (Oxford, 1937), 254.
Samuel Simon Witte, “An Answer to the Question: Would it be Harmful or Beneficial to Establish a National Uniform?” cited from Daniel Purdy, The Rise of Fashion: A Reader (Minneapolis, 2004), 77. The second and third prizes also opposed a costume; see Allgemeine Literaturzeitung 3.257 (1792), 685–86.
Lena Rangström, “A Dress Reform in the Spirit of its Age” (Stockholm, 1999), 262; see Gazette de France 31 (17 April 1778), from Antoine Prosper Lottin, Discours sur ce sujet (Amsterdam, 1804), 71–72.
Peter McNeil, “The Appearance of Enlightenment,” in: Martin Fitzpatrick et al., eds., The Enlightenment World (London, 2004), 390.
Auguste Geffroy, Gustave III et la cour de France (Paris, 1867), 1:319; Lindorm, Ny svensk Historia, 149.
Arnold Barton, “Gustav III of Sweden and the Enlightenment,” Eighteenth-Century Studies 6.1 (Autumn 1972), 17; on Voltaire’s “unqualified approval,” see Rangström, “A Dress Reform in the Spirit of its Age,” 263.
Tine Damsholt, Fœdrelandskœrlighed og borgerdyd (Copenhagen, 2000), 142.
Anne Krag, ed., Dragt og magt: Studier af magtsymboler i dragten (Copenhagen, 2003), 199–200; Damsholt, Fœdrelandskœrlighed og borgerdyd, 143–44.
Marie Melchior, “Dress and Fashion in Denmark,” Creative Encounters Working Papers 21 (November 1988), 5.
Jerzy Kornacki, “Problematyka zbytku w publicystyce ‘Monitora’ (1765–1785),” Kwartalnik Historii Kultury Materialnej 23.4 (1985), 417–25;
Gabriela Majewska, “Sweden’s Form of Government during the Reign of Gustavus III in the Eyes of the Journals of the Polish Enlightenment,” Scandinavian Journal of History 22.4 (1997), 291–306.
Carl Vilhelm Lilliecrona, Fältmarskalken grefve Johan Christopher Toll (Stockholm, 1850), 2:234. Thanks to Gabriela Majewska for this reference.
M.O., Discurso sobre el luxo de las señoras y proyecto de un traje national (Madrid, 1788), 41, 49; see also Therese Smith, “Fashioning the Enlightenment: The Proposal for a Female National Dress in Eighteenth-Century Spain,” Dieciocho 23.1 (Spring 2000), 80, 85.
Paula Demerson, Maria Francisca de Sales Portocarrero (Madrid, 1975), 149.
Werner Krauss, Das wissenschaftliche Werk, Auflkärung III (Berlin, 1996), 7:743.
William Fairhot, Costume in England: A History of Dress from the Earliest Period until the Close of the Eighteenth Century (London, 1860), 316.
Elizabeth Hurlock, The Psychology of Dress (New York, 1929), 7.
Elizabeth Lewis, Women Writers in the Spanish Enlightenment (Burlington, 2004), 13.
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© 2014 Alexander Maxwell
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Maxwell, A. (2014). Absolutist National Uniforms. In: Patriots Against Fashion. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137277145_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137277145_6
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