THE “TRICKLE-UP” EFFECT IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FASHION.

THE “TRICKLE-UP” EFFECT IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FASHION. The review by Ferdinand Mount that I posted on yesterday takes notice of eighteenth century comments condemning the efforts of the lower classes to dress above their station and points out that “‘The mill girl who wanted to dress like a duchess’ has been identified by Neil McKendrick as one of the forces propelling the Industrial Revolution.” But Mount also describes the “trend for elite fashion to follow plebeian styles.” Ladies took to wearing milkmaids’ aprons. A French visitor in 1747 said that “masters dress like their valets, and duchesses copy after their chamber-maids.” Mount compares one of the changes to the spread of blue jeans in the twentieth century. The caption my computer gives to the TLS review is “Pauper Chic.”