Clothing Occasions
Common types of clothing:
Common types of clothing:
Afternoon: Nice clothing meant to be worn to afternoon social gatherings.
Carriage: Worn while riding in a carriage, either for practical purposes or otherwise.
Court: Worn for court ceremonies. This is as formal as it gets. Court dresses are usually trained and dress code may call for an ostrich feather in the hair. In some countries, such as Great Britain, hoops were a part of court dress code long after they went out of style.
Day: Informal clothing typically worn at home.
Dinner: Worn to dinner parties or when eating at a nice restaurant.
Evening: Formal dress worn to social gatherings at nighttime, excluding balls.
Morning: Worn lounging around the house, not usually meant to be seen by anyone outside the family. Kind of the equivalent to sweatpants and an old t-shirt. It was sometimes made up of old, worn out clothes modified to make them more fashionable.
Mourning: Worn in the weeks, months or years after a family member has died. They can further be divided into clothing for full- and half-mourning, explained here.
Promenade: Worn for walking but is different from walking dress because it’s worn less for function and more for wanting to be seen. Someone wearing promenade dress probably doesn’t have any place they’re in a big hurry to get to.
Reception: Worn for receiving visitors.
Riding: Worn while horseback riding. These varied in formality based on whether one was meant to be seen by others as well as the intensity of the riding.
Tea: Predictably, this is something you would wear to a tea party.
Traveling: Worn while traveling long distances, such as in a train.
Visiting: Worn when visiting someone at their house. These outfits were usually somewhat simple, so as to not outdo the hostess.
Walking: Worn while out and about. It was meant to be functional so it was not usually very elaborate.