Sarah Jane Downing – författare

During their heyday in the mid-eighteenth century the pleasure gardens were one of the hubs of polite society. Laid out with formal gardens and buildings for dining and amusement, the pleasure gardens were the scene of upper class exercise and entertainment. Most famous were Vauxhall Gardens, Cremorne Gardens and Ranelagh Gardens. In Bath, Sydney Gardens is the only English pleasure garden that has not since been closed and built over. This book tells the story of the pleasure gardens, explaining their beginnings in the seventeenth century, their rising social importance, the variety of entertainment contained within, and their eventual decline into seedy hangouts for gamblers, thieves and prostitutes.

The broader Regency period 1795 to 1820, stands alone as an incredible moment in fashion history, unlike anything that went before it. For the first time, England became a fashion influence, especially for menswear, and became the toast of Paris, as court dress became secondary to the season-by-season flux of fashion as we know it today. Sarah Jane Downing explores the fashion revolution and the innovation that inspired a flood of fashions taking influence from far afield. It was an era of contradiction immortalised by Jane Austen, who adeptly used the new-found diversity of fashion to enliven her characters: Wickham's military splendour; Mr Darcy's understated elegance; and Miss Tilney's romantic fixation with white muslin.

The source of tremendous power and the focus of incredible devotion, throughout history notions of beauty have been integral to social life and culture.Each age has had its own standards: a gleaming white brow during the Renaissance, the black eyebrows considered charming in the early eighteenth century, and the thin lips thought desirable by Victorians.Beauty has ensured good marriages, enabled social mobility and offered fame and notoriety, and has led women – and some men – to remarkable lengths in cultivating it, from the dangerous quantities of lead applied by Elizabeth I, to the women of the 1940s and '50s, who employed face powder, lipstick and mascara to look their best during the privations of war and austerity, creating a chic appearance to which many still aspire.

Garments and accessories are prominent in almost all of William Shakespeare’s plays, from Hamlet and Othello to A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Twelfth Night. The statement 'Clothes maketh the man’ was one that would have resonated with their audiences: the rise of England's merchant class had made issues of rank central to Elizabethan debate, and a rigid table of sumptuary laws carefully regulated the sorts of fabric and garment worn by the different classes. From the etiquette of courtly dress to the evolution of the Elizabethan ruff, in this vibrant introduction Sarah Jane Downing explores the sartorial world of the late-16th century, why people wore the clothes they did, and how the dizzyingly eclectic range of fashions (including ruffs, rebatos and French farthingales) transformed over time.

After the success of Pastimes and Pleasures in the Time of Jane Austen, Sarah Jane Downing turns her attention to the hair and beauty styles of Jane Austen’s era. In Beauty and Cosmetics in the Time of Jane Austen, she examines the beauty ideals of the Regency period to shed light on the transition from the baroque high hair and formal doll-like faces of the court of King George III to the fresh complexions and glossy, bouncy ringlets of the Regency. She also dispels the myth that cosmetics and beauty aids disappeared during the period. Published to coincide with the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth, this book will be an invaluable resource for the legions of ‘Janeites’ who don Regency dress each year for the Jane Austen Festival in Bath and increasing number of Jane Austen-themed events around the world.