Plate 1: Empire period fashion. Garden Promenade dresses for November 1809. They reflect the Empire style. The fashion trend in the late years of the 18th and early 19th centuries was influenced by Classical Greece: high waisted gowns with long thin muslin skirts and long stoles. In the foreground the figure sports such details as: a shawl mantelet in purple silk, trimmed with a rich silk amber coloured fringe, fastened on the bosom with a pebble brooch, amber hoop earrings, shoes of white Morocco; gloves of York tan; parasol purple shot and fringed with amber. The figure in the back represents a lady with a Nun's hood thrown carelessly round the head, and falling in graceful negligence over the shoulders. (Original source: La Belle assemblee, vol. 7, no. 51)