Antiquity and Modernity in Neoclassical Dress: The Confluence of Ancient Greece and Colonial India

Fashionable in Britain in the early nineteenth century, Neoclassical dress embodied the aesthetic ideals of the Enlightenment; but it also reflected implicit cultural constructs of the body, gender, status, and race. Borrowings from ancient Greek styles differed for women and for men, and for elites versus the lower classes. The production of Neoclassical garments was dependent upon the economic exploitation of the Indian subcontinent. Neoclassical dress was not purely an aesthetic choice; it was essential for the individual negotiation of social and cultural differences in the British Empire.